Noted Assamese poet, literary critic and author and winner of the Sahitya Akademi award Nalinidhar Bhattacharyya passed away at a private hospital in Guwahati . Bhattacharyya, aged 95, was suffering from age-old ailments.

Bhattacharyya was a former principal of Arya Vidyapeeth College, Guwahati, his younger brother and another well-known Assamese litterateur Birendra Kumar Bhattacharyya had won the Jnanpith Award in 1979 and later also headed the Sahitya Akademi.

• He was Born in 1921 at Meleng Kathgaon near Jorhat, Bhattacharyya began his literary career as a poet, but later also emerged as a leading literary critic and essayist, which brought him several laurels including the Soviet Land Nehru Award (1983), Bharatiya Bhasha Parishad Award (1991), Sahitya Akademi Award (2002), and the Assam Valley Literary Award (2006).

• He was Honoured by Asam Sahitya Sabha with the ‘Sahityacharya’ title in 2010, Bhattacharyya’s best-known collections of poems include “Ei Kunwolite, Cherashalir Malita, Bidai Phular Din, Ahata Sapon and Noni Asane Gharat.