Indian socialist leader Mulayam Singh Yadav dies at 82

NEW DELHI (AP) — Mulayam Singh Yadav, India’s former defense minister and a veteran socialist leader, has died. He was 82. Yadav was admitted to a private hospital near Delhi for more than two weeks. His death was announced Monday by his son Akhilesh Yadav, the political heir to his Samajwadi Party that holds sway in India’s largest state of Uttar Pradesh. Yadav emerged as a socialist leader in the 1980s by defending the demands of the so-called backward castes and religious minorities. He rose to national prominence in 1996 by becoming India’s defense minister in a United Front coalition government.