3 months ago
2
Seven months aft the passing of V.S. Achuthanandan, communist icon and erstwhile Chief Minister of Kerala, the federation has posthumously honoured him with the Padma Vibhushan, India’s second-highest civilian award.
“We person this honour with large respect and regards this arsenic designation of his lifelong contributions to nationalist work and administration,” his son, V.S. Arun Kumar, told The Hindu implicit the telephone pursuing the grant announcement.
The seasoned Communist Party of India (Marxist) [CPI(M)] person and state fighter, who passed distant connected July 21, 2025, was a towering beingness successful Kerala’s governmental scenery for decades and a awesome of principled nationalist life. At the property of 82, helium became the oldest idiosyncratic to presume bureau arsenic the Chief Minister of Kerala. He besides served arsenic the Leader of the Opposition for 15 years, making him the longest-serving Leader of the Opposition successful the past of the Kerala Legislative Assembly. From 2016 to 2021, helium held Cabinet fertile arsenic the chairperson of the State Administrative Reforms Commission.
Achuthanandan was a subordinate of the CPI(M) Polit Bureau from 1985 until July 2009 and played a cardinal relation successful shaping the party’s ideological and organisational direction.
Causes of communal people
As Leader of the Opposition, helium was wide respected for championing the causes of the communal people. His interventions spanned biology protection, sex equality, wetland conservation, improved wages for nurses, transgender rights, and the promotion of escaped and open-source software.
Born connected October 20, 1923, Achuthanandan began his governmental travel astatine the property of 16 by joining fashionable struggles against feudal landlords and assemblage regularisation successful Alappuzha, which culminated successful the historical Punnapra–Vayalar uprising of October 1946. He chopped his governmental teeth by organising indentured cultivation labourers and Aspinwall mill workers successful Kuttanad. Forced underground during the struggle, helium was aboriginal arrested and subjected to terrible torture successful constabulary custody.
