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

How India is isolating Pakistan within Saarc

How India is isolating Pakistan within Saarc

The terrorist attack at an army administrative base in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday, which killed 17 soldiers, has reduced the political space for Prime Minister Narendra Modi to travel to Islamabad in November to attend the Saarc Summit. But, in recent months, New Delhi has shown uncharacteristic efficiency to reach out to Saarc members, other than Pakistan.

As part of the Modi government’s “neighbourhood first” policy, India has hosted or will be hosting the heads of states or governments of the six South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) members.

Alongside its Saarc outreach, the PM has raised the issue of terror havens in Pakistan and its export of terror at international platforms, most recently at the G20 Summit in China and the East Asia Summit in Laos. The Indian side, led by Vice-President M Hamid Ansari, raised Pakistan’s complicity in protecting outfits at the ongoing Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit in Venezuela.

While the PM will skip this year’s United Nations General Assembly, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj is set to raise the involvement of terror outfits based in Pakistan in carrying out attacks on Indian soil — Pathankot last year and Uri now. She is also likely to tell the world how Pakistani government bombs its own people in Balochistan.(more)

Also Read: 17 soldiers killed, 23 injured in cross-LoC strike on Uri camp.