A magnetic personality:

Kolkata, July 8: By his own admission, Communists don't celebrate their birthdays. But ailing former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu was overwhelmed by the huge number of people who turned up to wish him on his 96th birthday Wednesday.

Dhaka, July 15, 2009 : A museum and a library are among others which are likely to be built at the ancestral home of veteran communist leader and former West Bengal Chief Minister Jyoti Basu, a ruling party lawmaker told this correspondent during noon today.

Senior Political Columnist : It is difficult, if not extremely awkward, to write ahout a contemporary personally known for many years. Because, that often leads to highly subjective appreciation on the part of the writer as also equally subjective reaction on the part of the subject as well.

Jyoti Basu, now an octogenarian, is a rare kind of political leader and a rare kind of man. His accomplishments in public life are well known, even if (in the absence of a proper biography) his personal history is known to a relatively small circle. He is way and ahead the longest serving Chief Minister independent India has had.

Well before the next Assembly elections in West Bengal, Shri Jyoti Basu would have remained Chief Minister for longer than Jawaharlal Nehru was Prime Minister of India.

All India Forward Block:West Bengal is a State with unique characteristics marked with well-pronounced distinctiveness. These are all rooted historically in cultural, geo-political and economic particularities.

It is generally lamented that we have lot of politicians around, but very few states­men. Com. Jyoti Basu belongs to a unique fraternity of eminent statesmen, with im­peceable integrity and stainless sincerity. This fraternity, of late, can be only described as an endangered species.

It is no surprise that a major section of the Indian press and media has treated the self-determined retirement from office of one of the most illustrious political leaders and statesmen India has produced in the past century with ill-concealed bad grace and dismissivism ("a long innings with quite a low score," and so on), if not hostility.

THE HINDU: FREE India has seen several stalwarts as chief ministers. Rajaji, B. C. Roy, Govind Ballabh Pant, Morarji Desai and many others brought glory to their office. This stalwart species vanished with the passing away of Jawaharlal Nehru. One thing common among these stalwarts was their Congress origin.

I am not a member of CPI (M) or any of its associated bodies. Yet today I have been gripped by a sense of vacuum. For the first time at the age of 60 I have realised that throughout my life till today I have been led by Comrade Jyoti Basu, who I had never met. Perhaps many individuals of my generation are feeling like me.

I met Shri Jyoti Basu, Chief Minister of West Bengal in November 1977 in Darjeeling. I was the Deputy Commissioner, Darjeeling. This was soon after the Left Front Government had come to power in West Bengal. He was as taciturn as ever but coping well with the crisp and cold air in his black ‘gala-bund’, probably quite bureaucratic-looking as they come.

He was the last of the Mohikans. He was Comrade Jyoti basu, passed away at a very mature age of 96 years, but young in his outlook and expression.

Shri Jyoti Basu is a unique figure in Indian politics. As a communist he has never been a dogmatic theorist but a pragmatic politician and statesman gu ided by the humanistic principles and the social vision of Karl Marx.

KOLKATA, 1st January, 2010 (IANS): Nonagenarian Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and former West Bengal chief minister Jyoti Basu was on Friday admitted to a private hospital here with pneumonia.…

Medical Bulletins issued while Com Jyoti Basu was Hospitalised till his demise!