Veteran journalist, editor and author Inder Malhotra, who was ailing for the past couple of years, breathed his last on Saturday afternoon at a South Delhi hospital where he was being treated.
The 86-year-old journalist who was born in 1930 was one of the few political observers to be born before Independence.
Malhotra also had the rare distinction of covering every Prime Minister, from Jawaharlal Nehru to Narendra Modi.
He had served as the Resident Editor of The Statesman from 1965-1981 and Resident Editor of The Times of India from 1978-1986. He was also the India correspondent for the The Guardian newspaper from 1965-1995.
He had authored a biography of former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Since 1986, he was a distinguished columnist, contributing to various leading dailies and periodicals in India and abroad.
People close to him recall that Malhotra had a great memory.
He received the Ramnath Goenka Lifetime Achievement award in 2013. Malhotra was married to Rekha Malhotra, a former classical dancer who passed away in 2007 at the age of 81. Malhotra is survived by his only son.