Rohit Bal, one of India's best-known fashion designers, dies at 63

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Rohit Bal, one of India's best-known fashion designers, dies at 63

2024-11-03 01:55 Last Updated At：02:00

NEW DELHI (AP) —

Rohit Bal, one of India’s best-known fashion designers, died late Friday after a prolonged illness, the fashion designers association in the country announced. He was 63.

The Fashion Design Council of India, or FDCI, said in a post on Instagram, that they mourned “the passing of (a) legendary designer” who was “known for his unique blend of traditional patterns with modern sensibilities.”

Bal was one of India’s first designers who pioneered fashion design as a profession in the 1990s. The FDCI said Bal’s work “redefined Indian fashion” and “inspired generations.”

He had developed a heart condition in 2010. In between Bal took breaks from his work due to ill health but had made a comeback just weeks ago.

Bal was born in Indian-controlled Kashmir’s main city of Srinagar in 1961. He graduated from New Delhi’s St. Stephens College in history and later took a course in fashion design at India's National Institute of Fashion Technology in New Delhi.

In 1990, he launched his own label and designer line which later expanded to several stores across India, the Middle East and Europe. His clientele included celebrities from Hollywood and India’s rich and famous.

Sunil Sethi, the FDCI chairman, said on Instagram that his death has left “a void in the fashion design space forever.”

Costas Simitis, former Greek prime minister and socialist leader, dies at 88

2025-01-05 16:55 Last Updated At：17:00

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Costas Simitis, former prime minister of Greece and the architect of the country’s joining the common European currency, the euro, has died at age 88, state TV ERT reported.

Simitis was taken to a hospital in the city of Corinth early Sunday morning from his holiday home west of Athens, unconscious and without a pulse, the hospital’s director was quoted as saying by Greek media. An autopsy will be performed to determine the cause of death.

Simitis, a co-founder of the Socialist PASOK party in 1974, eventually became the successor to the party’s founding leader, Andreas Papandreou, with whom he had an often contentious relationship that shaped the party’s nature. Simitis was a low-key pragmatist where Papandreou was a charismatic, fiery populist. He was also a committed pro-European, while Papandreou banked on strong opposition to Greece’s joining what was then the European Economic Community in the 1970s, before changing tack once he became prime minister.

When the profligate first four years of socialist rule, from 1981 to 1985, resulted in a rapidly deteriorating economy, Papandreou elevated Simitis to be finance minister and oversee a tight austerity program. Finances improved, inflation was partly tamed, but Simitis was pushed to resign in 1987 when Papandreou, eyeing an upcoming election, announced a generous wages policy, undermining the goals of the austerity program.

The socialists returned to power in 1993, but Papandreou was ailing, and he finally resigned the premiership in January 1996. A tight two rounds of voting among the socialist lawmakers unexpectedly elevated Simitis to the post of prime minister.

Simitis considered Greece’s entry into the eurozone, in January 2001, as the signature achievement of his premiership. But he also helped secure the 2004 Olympic Games for Athens and presided over a vast program of infrastructure building, including a brand new airport and two subway lines, to help host the games. He also helped Cyprus join the European Union in 2004.

His critics on the right and left did their best to denigrate his legacy, highlighting a dubious debt swap concluded after the country had joined the eurozone as an attempt to massage the debt numbers.

In the end, it was determined opposition from his own party, including trade union leaders, to pension reform in 2001 that fatally weakened Simitis’ administration. He decided to resign his party post and not contest the 2004 election, five months before the Olympics, rather than face certain defeat to the conservatives.

George Papandreou, son of the socialist party’s founder, succeeded him as party leader, and in 2008 expelled Simitis from the PASOK parliamentary group after the two men clashed over policies, including Papandreou’s proposal to hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon. Simitis left parliament in 2009, but not before issuing a prescient warning that financial mismanagement would bring the country under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund, which would impose harsh austerity. In the end, it was the IMF, jointly with the EU, that imposed a harsh regime on a bankrupt country in 2010.

Costas Simitis was born on June 23, 1936, the younger son of two politically active parents. His lawyer father Georgios was a member of the left-leaning resistance “government” during the German occupation and his mother, Fani, was an active feminist.

Simitis studied law at the University of Marburg, in Germany, in the 1950s, and economics and politics at the London School of Economics in the early 1960s. He later taught law at the University of Athens. His elder brother Spiros, who died in 2023, was a noted legal scholar in Germany, specializing in data protection.

Simitis is survived by his wife of 60 years, Daphne, and two daughters.