Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson and ex-NASA scientist, Kanubhai dies at 87

Mahatma Gandhi's grandson Kanubhai Gandhi passed away on Monday at a private hospital here, where he was admitted about two weeks back following a heart attack. He was 87.

Kanubhai, the son of Mahatma's third son Ramdas Gandhi, along with his wife Shivalaxmi, had been living at an accommodation at the Radha Krishna temple run by Punjabi Samaj here for the last three months.

He was admitted to the hospital on October 22 after he suffered a heart attack. He was put on life support as he had also suffered a paralysis attack.

"Kanubhai died at 8.30 pm today at a Surat hospital," his close friend Dhimant Badhiya said.

"Doctors had said that he had also suffered a lung failure in the last few days," Kanubhai's caretaker and a member of Punjabi Samaj, Kailash Chhabra, told PTI.

Kanubhai, a former NASA scientist who was famously captured in a photograph pulling Mahatma Gandhi's walking stick as he led the Salt Satyagraha at Dandi in Gujarat, had come back to India in 2014 after living in the US for over four decades.

A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Kanubhai also worked with the US Defense Department on the wing structure of fighter aircraft. He had decided to spend the rest of his life in India, along with his wife.

"After staying in the US for over four decades, Kanubhai wanted to spend his last days in his own country, which is why he came here, along with his wife, as he had no child. He stayed at different places in Delhi, Wardha and Nagpur, before coming to Surat three months back," Badhiya said.Read more

Jawaharlal Nehru's name 'removed' from Rajasthan textbook; state minister denies deliberate omission

The "removal" of India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru's name from new textbooks for classes sixth to eight in Rajasthan elicited a strong reaction from the Congress even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) denied any wrongdoing.

The textbook, according to an Indian Express report, has been written "following a year-long curriculum re­structuring exercise".

According to a NDTV report, the textbook, "Samajik Vigyan", makes no mention of  Nehru as a freedom fighter or as "a leader of Independent India".

The report adds that the textbook does not mention Mahatma Gandhi's assassination at the hands of Nathuram Godse.

The Rajasthan unit of the Congress on Sunday reacted strongly to the move.

State Congress chief Sachin Pilot told IANS on phone: "It's absolutely unacceptable that the BJP is working in a vindictive manner by not even mentioning India's first prime minister in the textbooks."Read More.