The country's leaders on Wednesday paid glowing tributes to renowned strategic thinker K. Subrahmanyam, who passed away on Wednesday after a long struggle against cancer.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh expressed his great sadness at the loss of an “outstanding public servant, visionary and thinker who will be missed by the generations of bureaucrats, academics and writers who were inspired and influenced by his thoughts.”
In a message addressed to his family, the Prime Minister observed that Mr. Subrahmanyam's work outside the Government was “even more impressive.” Right from his work in the Ministry of Defence in the early sixties, wrote the Prime Minister, Mr. Subrahmanyam's career as a bureaucrat spanned many decades as “a civil servant who maintained the highest traditions of the bureaucracy through his honesty, dedication and exceptional abilities.”
Vice-President Hamid Ansari condoled the death of “one of the key architects of [India's] security policy doctrine,” recalling Mr. Subrahmanyam's instrumental role in sensitising policy makers and citizens to issues of strategic concern.
'Influential commentator'
National Advisory Council chairperson Sonia Gandhi called Mr. Subrahmanyam, who was a founder-director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Analyses, an “influential commentator” who helped shape public policy through his numerous writings. Mr. Subrahmanyam is survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter. The funeral will be held on Friday at the Lodhi crematorium.
