Noted veteran journalist Kuldip Nayar passes away
New Delhi-Noted veteran journalist, human right activist,ex-high commissioner of India to United Kingdom, former Member Parliament Kuldip Nayar passes away at the age of 95, in a Delhi Hospital. Cremation will take place today at Lodhi Ghat, New Delhi at 1 PM
He was born on August 14, 1923 at Sialkot (now in Pakistan) to Gurbaksh Singh and Pooran Devi. He completed his B.A. (Hons.) from the Forman Christian College Lahore and did his LLB from the Law College, Lahore. He is father to Senior Advocate of Supreme Court, Mr. Rajiv Nayar. In 1952, he studied journalism from the Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University on a Scholarship.
In a career spanning over six decades, Kuldip Nayar has covered a host of events; he has met, interviewed and written about major figures in India’s, as well as the world’s, political life: Indira Gandhi, Lal Bahadur Shastri, Jai Prakash Narayan, Mujibur Rahman, Ziaul Haq, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan.The list is endless. His first major assignment as a cub reporter working for Delhi-based Urdu newspaper Anjaam was to write on Gandhi’s assassination in 1948.
In 1992, Nayar started the practice of a candlelight vigil at the India-Pakistan border on the night between August 14 and 15. Scores of peaceniks join him as he marches up to the border at Attari, candle in hand; an equal number of activists, writers, poets and performers surges from the other side. “I am an optimist,” he tells the Herald. “One day, all of South Asia will be a union — one visa, one currency… everyone will be free to work, travel, think.” As we wind up our conversation he recites a verse by Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
He has been working to free Indian prisoners in Pakistan and Pakistani prisoners in India, who have completed their sentences, but have not been set free.
Last year The Kuldip Nayar journalism award was set up to honour those working in vernacular media and Ravish Kumar won the first award.
