aurangabad noted writer padma shri award winner and dalit leader gangadhar pantawane died here around 2am on tuesdaythe 80yearold was admitted to hospital after he fell in his home two months ago he is survived by his two daughters the criticwriter who was conferred with the padma shri recently was unable to attend the award distribution in new delhi on march 20 due to poor healthpantawane was born on june 28 1937 in nagpur he moved to aurangabad to pursue a phd from dr babasaheb ambedkar marathwada university bamu he ventured into teaching and landed his first job at milind college here which was started by ambedkar later he joined bamu and served in different capacities he retired as the head of the marathi department in june 1997pantawane had a flare for writing since his college days the struggles of the dalit community and the empowerment of the weaker sections remained his areas of concern in his writing dhammcharcha vadalache vanshaj muknayak and vidrohache pani petle aahe are considered to be among his major literary contributionshe has 15 books to his credit with many of them being reviews of dalit history in 1968 pantawane started asmitadarsh a trimonthly journal to give a voice to various social issues he served as the journals editor for several years the social movement started by pantawane had a large following leading to his emergence as a writer with a connection to the massesthe writercritic also served as the president of the maiden world literary meet which was hosted by the bay area maharashtra mandal in california us in february 2009 though the meeting ran into controversy with questions being raised over the need for such an event on foreign soil pantawane said it was an opportunity for showcasing the marathi language and its literature at a global platform pantawanes last rites were performed here on tuesday evening