OBITUARY: DAVID J. JHIRAD (1939-2013)

Vinod Mubayi

 

David Jhirad, a close friend for many years and a colleague of the editors of INSAF Bulletin, and a progressive hailing from India who contributed to the goals of energy and the environment, as well as to rational and scientific analysis of the use and development of resources, passed away in Washington, DC in June 2013.

 

David was born in Karachi, in undivided India, and grew up in New Delhi.  His father, who attained a high position in the Indian Navy, hailed from the small Indian Jewish community of the Bene Israel settled in and around Bombay and his mother was Scottish.  David attended St. Stephen’s College in Delhi, Cambridge University, and obtained his Ph.D. in physics at Harvard.  He was helpful in the early years of IPANA, the Indian Peoples Association in North America, and was a personal friend of the erstwhile Indian Marxist Leninist Vaskar Nandy.  David took progressive positions on many matters affecting India and the third world, as well as in causes of renewable energy and protection of the environment.  He is survived by his wife Anna, and his sons, Dylan, Nicholas, and Alexander.

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