Isher Judge Ahluwalia: Relentless professional, private person at heart

Her legacy lies not only in her work and the institution she helped build, but in the younger generation of scholars and analysts she helped recruit and develop

The news of Isher Ahluwalia’s passing away this morning came as a shock despite the fact that she had been ailing was common knowledge. If anyone could have beaten the odds, it would have been Isher with her iron will. 

My last face-to-face encounter with her was in Mumbai at the end of February. The occasion was the launch of ‘Backstage’, the memoir penned by her husband Montek Singh Ahluwalia, which, among many other things, is a testimony of their lives together. At the event, their son Pavan spoke openly of her medical battle and her decision to seek treatment