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Business News/ Politics / Policy/  India’s news-making octogenarians and nonagenarians
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India’s news-making octogenarians and nonagenarians

Here are seven octogenarians and nonagenarians who defy age and demographics while continuing to make headlines

The former BJP member was elected to the Rajya Sabha last week by the Rashtriya Janata Dal. Jethmalani is no stranger to politics and controversy. Photo: HTPremium
The former BJP member was elected to the Rajya Sabha last week by the Rashtriya Janata Dal. Jethmalani is no stranger to politics and controversy. Photo: HT

India will be the youngest country in the world by 2020 with a median age of 29 years, according to a report released by Helpage India last year, and those above 60 years could make up for 20% of India’s population by 2050.

Seven octogenarians and nonagenarians, however, defy age and demographics while continuing to make headlines.

V.S. Achuthanandan

92-year-old Velikkakathu Sankaran Achuthanandan led the winning campaign of the Left Democratic Front (LDF) in Kerala. Read more

Currently the oldest Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPM) leader, he was termed the “Fidel Castro of India" by the party leadership.

Till last month, he served his third term as opposition leader in Kerala and he plans to continue to play the role of a “sentinel" of the people of Kerala, after the party unanimously nominated Pinarayi Vijayan over him for the chief minister’s post.

Ram Jethmalani

Jethmalani, 92, is often called India’s highest paid lawyer. The former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) member was elected to the Rajya Sabha last week by the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD). Jethmalani is no stranger to politics and controversy. In 2013, he was expelled by the BJP for his “anti-party activities" after his tirade against the party’s top leaders for showing complicity in dealing with the black money issue. He filed a case before the Supreme Court in 2009, seeking the return of black money allegedly kept by Indians in foreign banks to evade Indian taxes.

M. Karunanidhi

Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi, the 92-year-old patriarch of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), has not lost a single election since 1957. He is now member of the legislative assembly from Thiruvarur constituency in Tamil Nadu, the 13th time he has been elected in a political career spanning 60 years. Although he has been wheelchair-bound for some years, the veteran continues to be a key political stakeholder.

Shanti Bhushan

The 90-year-old lawyer scripted two of India’s famous political gambles. One, he led the legal battle against former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s election in 1975 that ultimately resulted in the imposition of Emergency in the country, and in 2012, he became the first member of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Although not in active politics, Bhushan continues to steer institutions such as the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, a non-profit that files PILs in courts that take on the government every now and then.

L.K. Advani

The 88-year-old BJP stalwart and prime ministerial candidate in 2009 may have retired from active politics but his opinion on national issues continues to make headlines. Advani’s measured criticism of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government matters to the party’s top brass.

His tryst with politics began in 1951 when he joined the Jan Sangh. He has been a central minister twice in his illustrious career, and is now a member of the BJP’s ‘Margadarshak Mandal’.

Parkash Singh Badal

88-year-old Badal has been serving as chief minister of Punjab since 2007. In 2012, his party Shiromani Akali Dal along with the BJP was voted to power in Punjab defying anti-incumbency. His negative views on river water sharing, construction of the Sutlej-Yamuna Link (SYL) canal and the drug menace in Punjab will be a litmus test for this veteran in the upcoming state elections next year.

Fali Nariman

The 87-year-old is still India’s go-to man for the government as well as the opposition, when it comes to battling the biggest cases in courts. The former Rajya Sabha member and Padma Vibhushan awardee, he is still seen arguing key Constitution-related cases in the apex court.

Nariman led an army of top lawyers last year against the government in a case that led to scrapping of the National Judicial Appointments Act. The law sought to extend executive engagement in appointing judges to the higher judiciary. In 2014, he famously secured bail for Tamil Nadu chief minister J. Jayalalithaa after it was initially rejected. Recently, he led the arguments in a case that sought to define the contours of the power of governors after a Constitutional crisis emerged in Arunachal Pradesh.

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Published: 22 Jun 2016, 01:57 PM IST
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