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Veteran journalist Mark Tully, a chronicler of India and an acclaimed author, breathed his last at a private hospital here on Sunday, his close friend said. Tully was 90. The award-winning journalist was ailing for some time and had been admitted to the Max Hospital in Saket for the past week. "Mark passed away at Max Hospital Saket this afternoon," Satish Jacob, veteran journalist and a close friend of Tully, told PTI. Born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on October 24, 1935, Tully was the chief of bureau for the BBC, New Delhi, for 22 years. An acclaimed author, Tully was also the presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme 'Something Understood'. He was knighted in 2002 and received the Padma Bhushan from the government of India in 2005. Tully has written several books on India, including 'No Full Stops in India', 'India in Slow Motion', and 'The Heart of India'.
As a child of rich British parents in West Bengal's Tollygunge in the late 1930s, Mark Tully was not allowed to socialise with locals. As if in a karmic response to his parents' preferences, Tully spent a lifetime in India as a journalist and observer, mingling with its people and telling their stories, including from some of the most remarkable chapters in the country's eventful past. The renowned journalist, author and Indophile breathed his last at a private hospital here on Sunday at the age of 90. He was ailing for some time and had been admitted to the Max Hospital in Saket for the past week. Born in 1935 in Tollygunge, Tully had spent the first decade of his life in India, studying at a boarding school in Darjeeling before he was sent off to England for further education. In an interview to the BBC in 2001 after he was selected for Knighthood, Tully remembered England as "a very miserable place dark and drab, without the bright skies of India". After taking up a theology co
The main accused in the murder of journalist Lakshmi Narayan Singh alias Pappu was arrested late on Thursday night after a police encounter in Prayagraj, officials said on Friday. Singh (54), a journalist by profession and nephew of former High Court Bar Association chief Ashok Singh, was hacked to death near the Harsh Hotel on Thursday evening. He was rushed to the Swaroop Rani Nehru Hospital in a critical condition, where doctors declared him dead. Additional Commissioner of Police, Ajay Pal Sharma, said on Friday that evidence from the crime scene and statements of the eyewitnesses revealed that the attack on Singh was carried out by Vishal along with a few others. Vishal purchased a knife from the Machhli Bazaar in Khuldabad, which was later used to attack Singh. During a late-night encounter near the crime scene, the accused was injured after being shot thrice on his legs. He has been admitted to a hospital, Sharma said. Efforts are underway to trace another accused involved
In a major relief to Adani Enterprises Limited (AEL), a Delhi court on Saturday restrained certain journalists and others from publishing unverified defamatory content against the firm. In an interim order, the court also directed the journalists and foreign-linked NGOs to remove alleged defamatory material against the firm from articles and social media posts. Senior Civil Judge Anuj Kumar Singh was hearing a suit filed by the plaintiff (AEL), alleging that coordinated defamatory publications on paranjoy.in, adaniwatch.org and adanifiles.com.au, along with related posts and videos, were designed to tarnish the business group's reputation and disrupt its global operations. The defendants in the case are Paranjoy Guha Thakurta, Ravi Nair, Abir Dasgupta, Ayaskanta Das, Ayush Joshi, Bob Brown Foundation, Dreamscape Network International Private Limited, Getup Limited, Domain Directors Private Limited trading as Instra and John Doe persons. "There is a prima facie case in favour of the
The Supreme Court on Friday restrained Assam Police from taking any coercive action against senior journalist Siddharth Varadarajan and other journalists, including consulting editor, working with web portal "The Wire" in connection with an FIR lodged against them over a news article. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and Joymalya Bagchi passed the order after senior advocate Nitya Ramakrishnan, appearing for the journalists, said that Assam police was circumventing the earlier orders passed by the court. She said Vardarajan and other journalists, including a consulting, editor have been summoned Friday for recording statements in an old FIR lodged in May and there is apprehension that they may be arrested. The bench, while protecting the journalists, said everyone is expected to follow the law and asked the journalists to join the investigation and file a status report on the next date of hearing. On August 12, the top court had protected Vardarajan and restrained the Assam police fr
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu on Thursday strongly condemned the alleged assault on a photojournalist by YSRCP supporters during YSRCP chief Jagan Mohan Reddy's visit to the Bangarupalem mango market yard in Chittoor district. Reddy had visited the market on July 9 to interact with farmers and hear grievances over falling mango prices and issues related to crop procurement. Naidu said that Shivakumar, a photographer with a vernacular newspaper, was "assaulted" while covering the visit as part of his professional duties. He was reportedly seriously injured and is undergoing treatment at a hospital in Chittoor. "I spoke to Shivakumar over the phone, enquired about his health and ongoing treatment, and assured full support to his family," Naidu said in a post on 'X'. "It is painful to hear how leaders allegedly instigated this brutal attack. Such violence against the media will not be tolerated," he added. The Chief Minister said strict action would be taken agai
A senior journalist was hospitalised after he was allegedly assaulted while covering a BJP protest over Pahalgam terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district on Wednesday. The journalistic circles have strongly condemned the attack on Dainik Jagran reporter Rakesh Sharma at Kalibari chowk and demanded registration of an FIR against the accused. A purported video of the incident, showing the assault on the scribe, has gone viral on social media. Sharma said he was covering a BJP protest led by legislators Devinder Manyal, Rajiv Jasrotia and Bharat Bhushan when a party activist Himanshu Sharma accused the journalists of speaking the separatist language for raising questions related to security which is the domain of the union home ministry. Manyal was responding in a cordial atmosphere to the questions and said they are writing to the Prime Minister to request for a decisive action against the terrorists but the office bearers of the party were irked when the leaders were ask
Journalist Ksenia Lutskina served only half of her eight-year prison sentence in Belarus after being convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the government. She was pardoned after she kept fainting in her cell from a brain tumor diagnosed during pretrial detention. I was literally brought to the penal colony in a wheelchair, and I realized that journalism has really turned into a life-threatening profession in Belarus, she told The Associated Press in Vilnius, Lithuania, where she lives. Lutskina was one of dozens of journalists imprisoned in Belarus, where many face beatings, poor medical care and the inability to contact lawyers or relatives, according to activists and former inmates. She compared the prisons to those from the Soviet era. The group Reporters Without Borders says Belarus is Europe's leading jailer of journalists. At least 40 are serving long prison sentences, according to the Belarusian Association of Journalists. Lutskina had quit her job making documentaries for ..
The Supreme Court on Tuesday sought the Uttar Pradesh government's response to a plea of Kerala-based journalist Siddique Kappan seeking relaxation of a bail condition of reporting to police every week in a UAPA case registered against him. A bench of Justices P S Narasimhan and R Mahadevan asked the state government to file its reply on the plea of Kappan, who was arrested in October 2020 while on his way to Hathras in Uttar Pradesh after a Dalit woman from there died following a gang-rape. The bench listed the matter after two weeks. On September 9, 2022, the top court granted bail to Kappan, who was in jail for almost two years, while observing that every person has the right to free expression. It had laid down several conditions for bail, including that he would have to remain in Delhi for the next six weeks after release from prison and report to Nizamuddin police station here on Monday every week. "The appellant shall be taken to the trial court within three days and shall