Renowned litterateur and Jnanpith Award awardee Vinod Kumar Shukla passed away in Raipur today. Mr Shukla, who was around eighty-eight years old, had been undergoing treatment at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, AIIMS Raipur, for the past few days. He breathed his last at around five this evening.

Vinod Kumar Shukla was recently honoured with the prestigious Jnanpith Award. He was also conferred with the Sahitya Akademi Award for his novel, Deewar Mein Ek Khidki. His poetry collection, Lagbhag Jai Hind, and the novel, Naukar Ki Kameez, earned him wide acclaim. Mr Shukla had been actively engaged in literary writing for the past fifty years. His works have also been translated into several languages.