Indian journalist Praful Bidwai dead

Indian author and activist Praful Bidwai has died, aged 64, after choking on his food, reports say.

Bidwai, who lived in Delhi, was attending a conference in Amsterdam where the incident happened, a friend told the website The Wire.

He was a regular writer for magazines and newspapers, besides being a leading anti-nuclear activist.

Bidwai wrote many books, including the 1999 New Nukes: India, Pakistan and Global Nuclear Disarmament.

His latest book on the crisis in the Indian Left was due to be released later this year.

After working as a senior editor for the Times of India for a number of years, Bidwai became a freelance commentator, writing for publications in India and abroad.

Bidwai was a trenchant critic of the Narendra Modi-led ruling BJP government - in an article in The Guardian earlier this year he wrote that Modi's "grandiose schemes - including large-scale urban sanitation, cleaning up the Ganges, interlinking rivers or creating "smart cities" - smacks of gimmickry and empty sloganeering".

Bidwai was also a founding member of an anti-nuclear group set up after the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests.

Rich tributes were paid on social media to the deceased author: