Veteran journalist, author and anti-nuclear activist Praful Bidwai has died at the age of 64 during a visit to the Netherlands.
Delhi-based Bidwai was attending a conference in Amsterdam yesterday when he choked on his food and died of suspected cardiac arrest, a family friend told The Wire website.
The Indian embassy in the Netherlands said its consular wing was assisting in the case.
Bidwai was a fellow at Transnational Institute at Amsterdam, an organisation of international scholar-activists.
He was a regular contributor to magazines and newspapers, besides being a leading anti-nuclear activist.
He also wrote a number of books, including the 1999 New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament.
His latest book on the crisis in the Indian Left was due to be released later this year.
After working as a senior editor for the Times of India for a number of years, Bidwai became a freelance commentator, writing for publications in India and abroad.
He was a staunch critic of the Narendra Modi-led ruling NDA government and in an article in UK-based The Guardian earlier this year he wrote that Modi's "grandiose schemes – including large-scale urban sanitation, cleaning up the Ganges, interlinking rivers or creating 'smart cities' – smacks of gimmickry and empty sloganeering".