40 years ago, October 1, 1986: First-ever Asiad gold for Usha

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2 min readOct 1, 2026 06:30 AM IST First published on: Oct 1, 2026 at 06:30 AM ISTEcstasy and Agony. That was India’s lot on the second day of the track and field championships of the 10th Asian Games in the Olympic stadium in Seoul. The peerless P T Usha stormed to her first-ever Asiad gold in the women’s 400m hurdles in record-breaking style. She was just as convincing in the 200m semifinals and it doesn’t look as though the film star, model and crack sprinter of the Philippines, Lydia de Vega, can succeed in her pursuit of a phenomenal haul of six gold medals.Spurious liquor kills 4 in DelhiA husband and wife and two others died of liquor poisoning in the capital over the past 24 hours, the police said. Shankar (35) and his wife Champa (28) died in J P Hospital after they had consumed spirit that had apparently been adulterated, the police said. Both were from Gujarat and had been staying in Company Bagh, selling utensils, the police said.AdvertisementGorbachev and Reagan to meetThe Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev and the US President, Ronald Reagan, are to meet in Iceland for a two-day summit on October 11 and 12, according to a surprise announcement from the governments. The two leaders, who met for the first time in Geneva in November last year, will travel to Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland, for their second summit. Gorbachev is expected to visit the United States later this year. Reagan made the announcement at a brief unscheduled meeting with the press at the White House. The Soviet Foreign Minister, Eduard Shevardnadze, followed suit at a news conference in New York.Kashmir in the UNGAAfter a gap of four years, India and Pakistan were involved in an exchange over Kashmir in the UN General Assembly after the Pakistani Foreign Minister, Sahabzada Yaqub Khan, raised the matter in the 159-member forum.