Death and state funeral of J. Jayalalithaa
Open-knowledge reference entry
On 5 December 2016, at 23:30 IST, J. Jayalalithaa, Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and the longest-serving general secretary of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, died of cardiac arrest in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, at the age of 68. Jayalalithaa's death was publicly announced at 00:15 on 6 December 2016. She was succeeded by her finance minister, O. Panneerselvam.
Government of India declared a one-day national mourning with the national flag in all government buildings flying at half-mast. Government of Tamil Nadu observed a seven-day state mourning period from 6 to 12 December 2016. Jayalalithaa's's lying in state took place in Rajaji Hall on 6 December 2016, during which time an estimated 1,000,000 people queued to pay their respects. It became one of the notable funerals in the world.
The state funeral service was held, and Jayalalithaa was buried next to her mentor M. G. Ramachandran's cemetery at the M.G.R. and Amma Memorial Complex later that evening.
Background
On 22 September 2016, at around 10:00 p.m., the Apollo Hospitals emergency helpline received a call from Jayalalithaa's residence at Poes Garden reporting that she was unwell. Upon arrival, the medical team found that she was intermittently unresponsive, experiencing breathlessness, and had a critically low oxygen saturation level of approximately 48%.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Death and state funeral of J. Jayalalithaa” is open-knowledge reference entry. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Death, state and funeral, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “open-knowledge reference entry” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 26, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q115940804. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2016.
A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.
- Subject orientation
- Search vocabulary
- Locating named sources
The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Death and state funeral of J. Jayalalithaa”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Death and state funeral of J. Jayalalithaa primary sources, Death and state funeral of J. Jayalalithaa archive and Death research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Death and state funeral of J. Jayalalithaa”?
- What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
- Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Death and state funeral of J. Jayalalithaa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.