Rajiv Gandhi was born on August 20, 1944, in Mumbai. He was three years old when his grandfather Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of Independent India. Rajiv Gandhi was employed by Air India as a commercial pilot in 1970.
A reluctant entrant in the political arena, he was the last member of the Nehru-Gandhi family to hold the post of the Prime Minister of India. The death of his brother Sanjay Gandhi in a plane crash in 1980 and the assassination of his mother Indira Gandhi in 1984, forced him to become the Prime Minister at the age of 40.
Rich tributes were paid to the late Prime Minister on his birth anniversary by the Congress in Goa.