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Mani Sankar Mukherjee, the celebrated Bengali writer known by his pen name Sankar, passed away on February 20, 2026, at the age of 92 after being admitted to a Kolkata hospital for age-related ailments. He had been undergoing treatment for some time and died at the hospital. He is survived by his two daughters. Indian PM and WB CM have expressed their condolences. Image Via: ImageCraft26 Born on December 7, 1933, Sankar grew up in Debdoot Sheet Nagar in Howrah, West Bengal. The son of Avaya Mukherjee, he lost his father as a teenager and began working as a clerk to Noel Frederick Barwell, the last British barrister of the Calcutta High Court. While working, he enrolled at Surendranath College, then known as Ripon College, in Calcutta.  In 1962, on a rain-soaked day at the crossing of Central Avenue and Dalhousie in central Kolkata, Sankar conceived Chowringhee, a novel set in an opulent hotel he called Shahjahan. The book became a bestseller and was adapted into a film in 1968. His...

Mark Tully, renowned journalist, author, and one of the most perceptive chroniclers of India, died at a private hospital in New Delhi on Sunday, January 25, 2026. He was 90.  Tully had been unwell for some time.  Image Source: KBalakumar Born in Calcutta (now Kolkata) on October 24, 1935, to British parents, Tully spent the early years of his childhood in India before moving to the UK for his education. He studied theology at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and briefly trained for the priesthood before turning to journalism.  He joined the BBC in 1964 and became its India Correspondent in 1965, a role he held until 1994, including over two decades as the bureau chief in New Delhi. Over his 30-year career with the BBC, Tully reported on many of South Asia’s defining moments — from the Indo-Pakistan wars to the Emergency, Operation Blue Star, the Bhopal gas tragedy, and the assassinations of both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi.  He was barred from entering India during the Emergency...