Amateur radio in India is practised by more than 16,000 licensed users. The first amateur radio operator was licensed in 1921, and by the mid-1930s, there were around 20 amateur radio operators in India. Amateur radio operators have played an important part in the Indian independence movement with the establishment of pro-independence radio stations in the 1940s, which were illegal. The three decades after India's independence saw only slow growth in the numbers of operators until the then Prime Minister of India, and ham operator Rajiv Gandhi waived the import duty on wireless equipment in 1984. Since then, numbers have picked up, and as of 2007^[update], there were more than 16,000 operators in the country. Amateur radio operators have played a vital role during disasters and national emergencies such as earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones, floods, and bomb blasts, by providing voluntary emergency communications in the affected areas. The Wireless and Planning and Coordination Wing (WPC)—a division of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology—regulates amateur radio in India. The WPC assigns call signs, issues amateur radio licences, conducts exams, allots frequency spectrum, and monitors the radio waves. In India, the Amateur Radio Society of India (ARSI) represents amateur radio interests at various forums, and represents India at the International Amateur Radio Union. (more...)

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December 3: International Day of Disabled Persons

• 1854 – At least 22 people were killed and 35 others were injured when rebelling miners at the Eureka Stockade clashed violently with the police and the military in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia.
• 1904 – The Jovian moon Himalia was discovered by astronomer Charles Dillon Perrine at the Lick Observatory in San Jose, California, USA.
• 1967 – Cardiac surgeon Christiaan Barnard performed the first successful human heart transplant on Louis Washkansky at Groote Schuur Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa.
• 1984 – Bhopal gas disaster: The accidental release of methyl isocyanate over Bhopal, India resulted in at least 20,000 total deaths and affected over 120,000 others in one of the world's worst industrial disasters.
• 1999 – NASA lost contact with the Mars Polar Lander (pictured) moments before it reached the atmosphere of Mars and disappeared.

• More events: December 2 – December 3 – December 4

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