An Indian environmental activist has died on the 111th day of a hunger strike to pressure the government to clean the Ganges river. GD Agarwal, a former professor of environmental engineering at one of India’s top universities, died on Thursday afternoon in hospital in the north Indian city of Rishikesh, where he had been admitted earlier that day.
A spokesman for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Rishikesh said Agarwal, 87, had died from a cardiac arrest. Doctors at the institute told local media he had a hernia, high blood pressure and a coronary artery disease, all of which were exacerbated by the fast. Agarwal, who also went by the monastic name Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, had been fasting since 22 June to protest against the government’s inaction in cleaning the Ganges river.
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A spokesman for the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Rishikesh said Agarwal, 87, had died from a cardiac arrest. Doctors at the institute told local media he had a hernia, high blood pressure and a coronary artery disease, all of which were exacerbated by the fast. Agarwal, who also went by the monastic name Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand, had been fasting since 22 June to protest against the government’s inaction in cleaning the Ganges river.
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