Goa, April 26 -- KARSTEN MIRANDA

Prof Edgar F N Ribeiro, former Chief Town Planner of India and Advisor (Spatial Planning) to the Planning Commission of India, passed away at the age of 96. With his passing, Goa and the nation have lost one of the most principled and consequential urban planners of independent India - a man who shaped national policy from the highest offices of government and spent his final years, with undiminished fire, fighting to protect the land he was born on.

Tributes poured in from across the country since news of his passing broke.

Claude Alvares, Director of the Goa Foundation, captured the depth of the loss most fully: "With the passing of Edgar Ribeiro, we Goans have lost a priceless human being, a great Go...