{"id":301450,"date":"2018-08-16T12:41:48","date_gmt":"2018-08-16T12:41:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=301450"},"modified":"2018-08-16T12:46:13","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T12:46:13","slug":"former-pm-atal-bihari-vajpayee-passes-away-at-93","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/former-pm-atal-bihari-vajpayee-passes-away-at-93\/","title":{"rendered":"Former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee passes away at 93"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-301459 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/ABvaj-300x186.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"637\" height=\"395\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/ABvaj-300x186.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/ABvaj-356x220.jpg 356w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/ABvaj-696x430.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/ABvaj-679x420.jpg 679w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/ABvaj.jpg 705w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 637px) 100vw, 637px\" \/>Former Prime Minister and Bharat Ratna awardee Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away at 93\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0at AIIMS Delhi where he was being treated since last nine weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Alarm bells\u00a0rang when\u00a0Former Prime Minister\u00a0Atal Bihari Vajpayee\u00a0became\u00a0critical\u00a0and had\u00a0been put on life support system after his health deteriorated on\u00a0August 15.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">\u00a0According to the press release by All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) on Thursday evening, \u201cIt is with profound grief that we inform about the sad demise of Former Prime Minister of India, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee at 05:05 pm on 16.08.2018.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Shri Vajpayee was admitted in AIIMS on 11.06.2018 and was stable in the last 9 weeks under the care of a team of AIIMS doctors.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Unfortunately, his condition deteriorated over the last 36 hours and he was put on life support systems. Despite the best of efforts, we have lost him today.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">We join the Nation in deeply mourning this great loss.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-301458 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/Atal-AIIMS-300x252.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"471\" height=\"396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/Atal-AIIMS-300x252.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/Atal-AIIMS-696x583.jpg 696w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/Atal-AIIMS-501x420.jpg 501w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/08\/Atal-AIIMS.jpg 730w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 471px) 100vw, 471px\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Atal Bihari Vajpayee, being a diabetic had only one functional kidney. He suffered a stroke in 2009, weakening his cognitive abilities. Later, he developed dementia.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">He was elected as Prime Minister thrice during 1996, 1996-1999 and during 1999-2004 \u2014 when he completed the full five-year term as a non-Congress Prime Minister. As his health deteriorated, he slowly withdrew himself from public life and was confined to his residence for years.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Mourning the loss of Vajpayee, PM Narendra Modi tweeted, &#8220;India grieves the demise of our beloved Atal Ji. His passing away marks the end of an era. He lived for the nation and served it assiduously for decades. My thoughts are with his family, BJP Karyakartas and millions of admirers in this hour of sadness. Om Shanti.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">President Ram Nath Kovind expressing his condolences, said, &#8220;Extremely sad to hear of the passing of Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee, our former Prime Minister and a true Indian statesman. His leadership, foresight, maturity and eloquence put him in a league of his own. Atalji, the Gentle Giant, will be missed by one and all.&#8221;\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Former Prime Minister and Bharat Ratna awardee Atal Bihari Vajpayee passed away at 93\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0at AIIMS Delhi where he was being treated since last nine weeks. Alarm bells\u00a0rang when\u00a0Former Prime Minister\u00a0Atal Bihari Vajpayee\u00a0became\u00a0critical\u00a0and had\u00a0been put on life support system after his health deteriorated on\u00a0August 15.\u00a0 \u00a0According to the press release by All India Institute of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":301459,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[36],"tags":[2208,453,316,1346,1452],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301450"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301450"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301450\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301462,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301450\/revisions\/301462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/301459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}