Nagaland Governor condoles Vajpayee's death (Lead, Correcting headline)

Kohima : Nagaland Governor P.B. Acharya on Thursday condoled the passing away of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

"In his passing away, the nation has lost a statesman, a great human being, a poet, tall leader and, above all, a patriot," Acharya said in his condolence message on behalf of the people of Nagaland.

The Governor recollected how former Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao had requested Vajpayee, the Opposition leader, as leader of the Indian delegation to the special session of the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, where a Pakistan-sponsored resolution to censure India on its human rights record in Jammu and Kashmir was successfully thwarted.

"For the first time, it was Atalji who introduced Hindi to address in UNO," he recalled.