End Of An Era: Jayalalithaa 1948-2016 

Chennai: Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa died in Chennai on December 5 following a prolonged illness.
Here is a factoid on the late chief minister and All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) general secretary:

• Jayalalitha was born on 24 February 1948, at Melukote, in Pandavapura taluka, Mandya district, then in Mysore State (now Karnataka) to Jayaram and Vedavalli in a Tamil Iyengar Brahmin family.
• Appeared in 140 films which includes Tamil, Telugu, and Kannada films.
• A linguist, she was fluent in Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Hindi and English.
• She was the general secretary of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK). She served as Chief Minister from 1991 to 1996, in 2001, from 2002 to 2006 and from 2011 to 2014.

• She is popularly referred to as Puratchi Thalaivi, Thanga Gopuram, Thanga Chillai and Thanga Tharagai (Golden Maiden) by her followers.
• She also served as the Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) from 1984 to 1989.
• Jayalalithaa became the first incumbent chief minister in India to be disqualified from holding office due to conviction in a disproportionate assets case on 27 September 2014.
• She was re-elected as Chief Minister on 19 May 2016 and took the oath as Chief Minister for the sixth time on 23 May 2016.
• In the era of coalition politics, she wielded powerful influence both at the federal and the regional level. Over the years, her party has been a part of both the ruling and opposition alliances at various points in time.
• A major highpoint of her political carer was the 1995 wedding of her adopted son. Her political opponents cite it as an example of her extravagant show of wealth. Guinness Book of Records recorded the ensuing wedding banquet as the largest ever.
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