Baker didn’t ask to be called a humorist. During a 1994 speech in Hartford, Connecticut, he said his goal for the “Observer” was to render the federal government, politics and diplomacy accessible through plain, easy-to-read language. It was to be more widely appealing than the “High-Church, polysyllabic” writing common in The New York Times.

KATHMANDU, Nov 16: Renowned Indian columnist and novelist Shobhaa De has arrived in Kathmandu for Growthways, a media and entrepreneurship convention to be organized by Nepal Republic Media (NRM) in Kathmandu on Thursday.