{"id":304047,"date":"2018-10-12T06:20:52","date_gmt":"2018-10-12T06:20:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/?p=304047"},"modified":"2018-10-12T06:20:52","modified_gmt":"2018-10-12T06:20:52","slug":"ganga-activist-gd-agarwal-dies-at-aiims-hospital-rishikesh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/ganga-activist-gd-agarwal-dies-at-aiims-hospital-rishikesh\/","title":{"rendered":"Ganga Activist GD Agarwal Dies at AIIMS hospital, Rishikesh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" wp-image-304046 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/tehelka.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/swami-gyanswaroop-sanand-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"367\" height=\"275\" srcset=\"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/swami-gyanswaroop-sanand-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/swami-gyanswaroop-sanand-80x60.jpg 80w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/swami-gyanswaroop-sanand-265x198.jpg 265w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/swami-gyanswaroop-sanand-560x420.jpg 560w, https:\/\/tehelka.com\/media\/2018\/10\/swami-gyanswaroop-sanand.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 367px) 100vw, 367px\" \/><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Activist GD Agarwal, who was on an indefinite fast to urge the government to clean river Ganga died on Thursday at the AIIMS hospital in Rishikesh. He was 87.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Agarwal, a former professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, began his fast on June 22 to protest the government&#8217;s alleged inaction in taking measures to make the Ganga free of pollution and free-flowing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">According to the reports, Aggarwal died due to Heart attack.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Activist Aggarwal sat on a fast-demanding step that would protect the river and maintain its uninterrupted flow between Gangotri and Uttarkashi in Uttarakhand.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">However, Union Water Resources and Ganga River Rejuvenation Minister Nitin Gadkari issued a statement after his demise stating \u201cmost of the demands have been accepted\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Agarwal had sent several letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, but the government paid no heed to his demands. \u201cI have written several letters to PM Modi in the past addressing matters related to Gangaji, but I have not received any response from him,&#8221; Aggarwal had said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his condolences on Twitter. &#8220;Saddened by the demise of Shri GD Agarwal Ji. His passion towards learning, education, saving the environment, particularly Ganga cleaning will always be remembered. My condolences,&#8221; the prime minister tweeted.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">Agarwal had served as a Member-Secretary of the Central Pollution Control Board.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-family: 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 14pt;\">He formally renounced the world and adopted the name Swami Gyanswaroop Sanand in 2012.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Activist GD Agarwal, who was on an indefinite fast to urge the government to clean river Ganga died on Thursday at the AIIMS hospital in Rishikesh. He was 87. Agarwal, a former professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Kanpur, began his fast on June 22 to protest the government&#8217;s alleged inaction in taking [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":304046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2009,2014,2914],"tags":[5530,3498,5529,316,4027,1481],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304047"}],"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\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=304047"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304047\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304048,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/304047\/revisions\/304048"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/304046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=304047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=304047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=304047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}