May

• 5 May - President Pratibha Patil presents Padma Vibhushan awards to Pranab Mukherjee, Sachin Tendulkar and Asha Bhosle.
• 8 May - Jerome Bonnafont, the French Ambassador to India, puts forward the proposal of a large scale nuclear cooperation between India and France
• 13 May - Bomb blasts rock Jaipur. About 80 people are killed in serial blasts.
• 18 May - The bruised body of social activist and member of NGO Vikas Sahyog Kendra, Lalit Kumar Mehta was found in Kandra forest in Palamau in Jharkhand. Mehta was involved in social audit of NREGS and is suspected to have been killed by those having "vested interests."
• 20 May - Calling Chattisgarh government's Salwa Judum vigilante campaign against naxalism as “an abdication of the state itself”, an experts group of the Planning Commission called for its immediate scrapping.
• 21 May - Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav announces cash awards amounting to Rs.17.40 crore for officers and staff of all zonal railways.
• 22 May - Following resounding victory of the Trinamool Congress in the panchayat elections in Nandigram area, violence erupts in Purbo Medinipur district. In clashes between workers of Trinamool and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) five persons were injured.
• 23 May - Prithvi II, a nuclear-capable, 350-km range surface-to-surface ballistic missile, is successfully test-fired.
• 23 May - The Union Environment and Forests Ministry has decided to create four new tiger reserves at (1) the Sunabeda Tiger Reserve in Orissa, (2) the Shahyadri Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra, (3) the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve in Uttar Pradesh and (4) the Ratapani Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh. Besides, Nagarahole National Park in Karnataka to be upgraded as a separate reserve.
• 23 May - President Pratibha Patil starts her maiden visit to Jammu and Kashmir
• 23 May - A week ahead of first anniversary of police firing on agitating Gujjars violence erupts in Rajasthan. Four Gujjar protesters and one policeman killed in clashes in Bharatpur district. The tally goes up to 17 later.
• 24 May - Eighteen killed and 38 others injured in police firing in Dausa district of Rajasthan in the ongoing Gujjar-police clashes.
• 25 May - The Bhartiya Janta Party comes to power in Karnataka. In the assembly elections held earlier in the week, BJP win 110 seats. Congress is second with 80.