Despite the 1971 victory, Indira Gandhi was eager to negotiate a lasting peace with Pakistan. She met her counterpart Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto at Simla in 1972 -- where the wily leader was probably outsmarted by the even more cunning Bhutto.

On May 18, 1974, India conducted what it described as a peaceful nuclear test at Pokhran in Rajasthan, sparking off a nuclear race in the subcontinent (Bhutto had famously declared in 1965: 'If India builds the bomb, we will eat grass or leaves, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own'), which climaxed with the nuclear tests by both India and Pakistan in May 1998, putting both nations on the world's map of nuclear weapons powers.

Indira Gandhi with Bangladesh's first Prime Minister Sheikh Mujibur Rehman (top), Pakistan dictator General Zia-ul Haq and (bottom) Iraqi President Saddam Hussain.

Also See: 30th anniversary of the 1971 war with Pakistan