K R Narayanan
Term of office: July 25, 1997 to July 25, 2002
A former diplomat, Kocheril Raman Narayanan broke the tradition of upper caste occupants in Rashtrapati Bhavan, becoming the Republic's first Dalit President.
An alumnus of the famed London School of Economics where he studied under Harold Laski, among his close friends were Pierre Trudeau, the former prime minister of Canada, and Veerasamy Ringadoo, the first President of Mauritius.
On his return to India Laski gave him an introductory letter for Jawaharlal Nehru.
Narayanan became President in 1997 after defeating T N Seshan.
He set a new precedent in the age of coalition politics -- if no party or pre-poll coalition had a majority, then a prime minister could only be appointed if he was able to convince the President through letters of support from alliance partners of his ability to obtain the confidence of the House.
After his retirement, he and his Burmese wife Usha (who took Indian citizenship), lived on Prithviraj Road in Delhi. He wrote articles and gave interviews expressing his views about politics and his tenure. In an interview published on rediff.com he said the Vajpayee government had supported the Gujarat riots of 2002.
K R Narayanan died on November 9, 2005, at the army's Research and Referral Hospital, New Delhi, after being briefly ill with pneumonia and consequent renal failure.
His daughter is India's ambassador to Turkey.
Photograph: Paresh Gandhi
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