Thiruvananthapuram: Kerala's veteran politician and member of the first Communist government headed by E M S Namboodiripad in 1957, K R Gowri Amma died here on Tuesday.

She was 102 and had been admitted to a private hospital due to age-related ailments. She breathed her last at 7 am on Tuesday while undergoing treatment in the ICU, hospital sources said.

Considered to be among the most powerful women leaders in Kerala, Gowri Amma, as she was fondly called, was the lone surviving member of the first Kerala legislative assembly.

After being expelled from the CPI(M) in 1994, Gowri floated a new political outfit -- Janathipathiya Samrakshana Samithi (JSS) -- which became a constituent of the Congress-led UDF in the state.

She was married to the late T V Thomas, who was also her cabinet colleague.

Gowri, who was the revenue minister in EMS Namboodiripad ministry, is credited with playing a key role in bringing the revolutionary Agrarian Relations Bill, which set the ceiling on the amount of land a family could own, paving the way for the landless farmers to claim excess land.

After the split in the Communist Party in 1964, Gowri joined the CPI (Marxist), while her husband remained with the CPI.

Born on July 14, 1919 in the sleepy Pattanakkad village of coastal Alappuzha to K A Ramanan and Parvathy Amma, Gowri was attracted to politics at a young age.

She was jailed in 1948, the year she joined the Communist Party, and defied adversities to build the organisation.

Gowri, the tallest woman politician of the state who never minced words to put her thoughts across, was elected to the Travancore-Cochin legislative assembly in 1952 and 1954.

After her successful foray to the state legislature in 1957 from Cherthala in Alappuzha, there was no looking back.

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Mumbai, Jan 8: The rupee extended its slide for the second straight session and declined 17 paise to hit a fresh record low of 85.91 against the US dollar on Wednesday amid higher crude oil prices and stronger American currency.

Lacklustre sentiment in domestic equity markets and sustained outflow of foreign funds also played spoilsport even as investors stayed cautious over lower economic growth projection by the government, forex analysts said.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 85.82 and lost further ground to finally settle at 85.91 against the dollar, 17 paise lower than its previous close.

On Tuesday, the rupee settled with a loss of 6 paise at 85.74 against the dollar.

"This decline is attributed to the strengthening of the US dollar, bolstered by positive economic indicators from the United States, including robust labour market data and increased activity in the services sector. These factors have led to a rise in US Treasury yields, making the dollar more attractive to investors," Anil Kumar Bhansali,

Head of Treasury and Executive Director, Finrex Treasury Advisors LLP, said.

"In response, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has intervened through state-run banks to mitigate the rupee's losses. Despite these efforts, the rupee's depreciation reflects broader concerns about India's economic growth and capital flows," he said.

Meanwhile, the dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.35 per cent higher at 108.76.

The 10-year US bond yields also remained elevated at 4.67 per cent amid expectations of delayed interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve.

Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, climbed 0.90 per cent to USD 77.74 per barrel in futures trade.

In the domestic equity market, the 30-share BSE Sensex skid 50.62 points, or 0.06 per cent, to settle at 78,148.49 points, while the Nifty fell 18.95 points, or 0.08 per cent, to 23,688.95 points.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) offloaded Rs 3,362.18 crore in the capital markets on a net basis on Wednesday, according to exchange data.

The latest government data released on Tuesday showed India's economic growth rate is estimated to slip to a four-year low of 6.4 per cent in 2024-25 due to poor show by the manufacturing and services sectors.

The gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 6.4 per cent will be the lowest since the Covid year (2020-21) when the country witnessed a negative growth of 5.8 per cent. It was 8.2 per cent in the last fiscal year ended March 2024.

The first advance estimates of the national income for 2024-25 released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) is lower than the 6.6 per cent projected by the Reserve Bank in December 2024.