NEW DELHI: Veteran journalist and author Sat Soni has died at a private hospital in Gurugram, his family said on Friday.
He was 89.
Born in Mandalay in Myanmar, he had moved to Punjab in 1944 in the wake of the Japanese invasion during the Second World War.
He was educated in Jalandhar, where he learnt Urdu and Hindi for the first time, a family member said.
"Sat Soni, one of the most senior Hindi journalists of the nation, breathed his last on Thursday at Medanta Hospital in Gurugram," the family said in a statement.
He began his career in language journalism in 1951 by joining the Urdu daily, "Milap".
He later joined Bennett Coleman and Co. in the mid-50s and was with "Navbharat Times" till 1979 when he was selected to launch "Sandhya Times", a publication that soon became the largest-selling Hindi evening newspaper of India, it said.
Over the course of his writing career, he authored many books, including the biography of ex-President Giani Zail Singh -- "From Mudhouse to Rashtrapati Bhawan", the statement said.
Soni is survived by his wife, son, daughter-in-law and two grandsons, it said.