Brian Williams remembered in New Delhi

The Digger is fondly remembered in New Delhi and his protégé, Moses Manoharan, rounded up some colleagues from the mid-1980s for an evening of memories and storytelling at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club. Moses, now a magazine publisher, recalled being packed off by Brian on the overnight train to cover the Bhopal disaster. He beat other international reporters who waited hours for the first flight out of Delhi - a scoop confirmed by John Elliott, who was then at the FT and is still based in the Indian capital. We were delighted that Barbara Hasan, the wife of late Reuters reporter Najmul Hasan, was able to join us. After Najmul died in 1983 covering the Iran-Iraq war, Brian gave Barbara a job at Reuters as bureau librarian. “I was a housewife, completely unqualified, but I stayed for 16 years,” said Barbara, who treasures Brian’s memory.

PHOTO (L to R): Sitamaran Shankar (Reuters 2000-12, now at the Hindustan Times), Moses Manoharan (Reuters 1982-97, now publisher of the Global Dialogue Review), Douglas Busvine and Susie Anabith (with Reuters in New Delhi), Zarina Bazliel (formerly of Reuters), Barbara Hasan (formerly of Reuters) and Sandeep Nakai (formerly of Reuters, later AP). ■