Finance
Jimmy Carter, a former US president, died on Sunday at the age of 100.
He was the world’s oldest living president and the third US president to visit India.
Carter died at his home in Plains, Georgia.
He was suffering from an aggressive form of melanoma, a type of skin cancer, with tumors spreading to his liver and brain. He had discontinued medical therapy and was receiving hospice care at home.
His death was announced by the Carter Centre in Atlanta.
“My father was a hero, not only to me but to everyone who believes in peace, human rights, and unselfish love,” said Chip Carter, the former President’s son.
“My brothers, sister, and I shared him with the rest of the world through these common beliefs. The world is our family because of the way he brought people together, and we thank you for honouring his memory by continuing to live these shared beliefs.”
President Carter, a Democrat, spent one term from 1977 to 1981 and was voted out of office despite accomplishments such as the Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt, which proved inadequate to offset disappointment about a stagnant domestic economy and the Iran situation overseas.
He went on to carve out an extraordinary post-presidency life and won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2002 for, the prize citation said, “his decades of untiring effort to find peaceful solutions to international conflicts, to advance democracy and human rights, and to promote economic and social development”.
His wife of 77 years, Rosalyn Carter died in November 2023, at 96.
Carter became the third US president to visit India, following Dwight Eisenhower in 1959 and Richard Nixon in 1969.
The first lady accompanied him during this tour in 1978.
Carter spoke with then-President Neelam Sanjeeva Reddy and Prime Minister Morarji Desai, and he addressed Parliament. Carterpuri is the name of a village he visited in Gurugram (formerly Gurgaon) that still exists today.
“The atmosphere throughout the visit was friendly, and the President’s reception by the Indian public was enthusiastic,” the US Embassy in New Delhi had reported to the State Department in a telegram published by the US Office of the Historian.
“It is clear that the President established an excellent personal rapport with the Prime Minister. The editorial comment, in the wake of the visit, while generally reflecting the atmosphere described above, also expressed some reservations. For the most part, these focused on the differences in the nuclear field.”
Carter’s mother, Lilian Carter, had however visited India much before he did. She went to India as a member of the Peace Corps at the age of 68 and returned in 1977 to represent the US at the funeral of President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed.
“My mother, who loves this nation and its people very deeply, has told me of the warmth and friendship of the Indian people,” President Carter had said in his remarks to Indian lawmakers.
“She experienced it in her years of service here and, again, a few months ago in a time of sorrow when she represented me as President and the people of the US at the funeral of your former President.”
Source: IANS
