![]() ![]() Nayar was born in Sialkot, in present-day Pakistan, in 1923, and his goodhearted “Punjabiness” was often the lens through which he looked at the biggest issues of the day - from India-Pakistan enmity to the wars and the rise of ultra-nationalism in the garb of Hindutva. In 1987, #KuldipNayar’s “interview” of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the head of Pakistan’s nuclear program, which appeared in ‘The Observer’, London, revealed to the world that Pakistan possessed an atom bomb. Easily, it was one of the two biggest scoops from Nayar’s uber-prolific pen - the other being his 1987 interview published in The Observer, London, with Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan that let the whole world know that our western neighbour was developing the atom bomb! Two days after Nayar broke the story and the Indian Express published it in its front page, Indira Gandhi lifted the Emergency and dissolved the then current Lok Sabha. In fact, it was both ironic and telling that this staunch critic of Emergency would be the journalist to break the news that former PM Indira Gandhi was contemplating the lifting of Emergency and call for fresh elections to the Lok Sabha in January 1977. ![]() Two days after Nayar broke the story and the Indian Express published it in its front page, Indira Gandhi lifted the Emergency…It was one of the two biggest scoops from Nayar’s uber-prolific pen - the other being his 1987 interview with Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan that let the whole world know that our western neighbour was developing the atom bomb! ![]()
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