40 years ago October 14, 1986: Call for Indian Ocean meet

This is the front page of The Indian Express published on October 14, 1986.

2 min readOct 14, 2026 06:40 AM IST First published on: Oct 14, 2026 at 06:40 AM IST

India and Indonesia called for greater cooperation among developing countries to reinforce their demand for an equitable international economic order through a North-South dialogue. PM Rajiv Gandhi, speaking at a banquet hosted by Indonesian President Suharto, said that advanced economies were working against the concerns of the economically weak.

Security lapse at Rajghat

A security officer posted just below the creeper where a gunman hid at Rajghat on the morning of October 2 had strayed several metres from his post. This primarily led to the failure to pinpoint the source of the gunshot, and could have been fatal for the Prime Minister, police sources said.

US-USSR talks collapse

The United States and the Soviet Union were close to a major agreement on nuclear disarmament when the summit broke down over the US refusal to yield on its Star Wars research. The Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev told newsmen in Reykjavik at the end of the summit that the two sides were about to agree on a plan to cut strategic weapons by 50 per cent in five years, eliminate medium-range missiles in Europe and reduce the number of warheads on Soviet medium-range missiles in Asia to 100, TASS reported. But while he demanded that these cuts be linked to a ban on Star Wars, Reagan rejected it outright.

India worried over impasse

The Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, expressed India’s concern at the breakdown of the talks on disarmament between the United States President, Ronald Reagan and the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbache, in Reykjavik.