Historian Barun Dey passes away

Eminent historian Barun Dey,whose main area of research was ‘Modern India’,died at a city clinic Tuesday night after a protracted illness,his family said Wednesday. Dey was 80 and is survived by his wife,a son and a daughter. Associated with a number of historical institutions,Dey was vice-president of Asiatic Society and vice-chairman of Centre for Archaeology,besides being a member of the Board of trustees of Victoria Memorial and governing body of Indian Museum. Dey had specialised in Indian social and economic history of the 17th and 18th centuries,Bengal renaissance and British constitutional history. He was the author of Secularism at Bay: Uzbekistan at the turn of century. Calcutta University Vice-Chancellor Suranjan Das described him as a “rare historian who was equally responsible to his students and towards his research work.”