B.Raman was a Indian senior intelligence agent and after his retirement a rather nationalist-hawkish but straight commentator on South-East Asian geopolitics. Reading his blog, following his tweets and watching this or that lecture by him helped me understand the issues of that area. I quoted him several times in my postings here.

In 2009 B. Raman was diagnosed with cancer. He fought his illness and very openly communicated about it. I admired that. His last tweet went out on May 30 when he was again admitted to a hospital.

I will miss his comments. Such direct senior insight into a far away place, even when sometimes partisan, is much more valuable than the usual biased fiction the media is trying to sell.