We honour a man today who was always able to question superstition and strip it bare; make scary religious stories look ordinary; challenge traditional and conservative thinking, and make rational thinking remind us of the greatness in us all.

Learning that he had terminal cancer of the stomach, and knowing that Basava Premanand, the 79 year old doyen of Indian rationalism, did not have much time left to live, I went to visit him in Coimbatore in South India earlier this year.

The British Humanist Association (BHA) has expressed its sadness at the death of Sir Ludovic Kennedy (1919-2009), author, campaigner, Humanist and distinguished supporter of the BHA.

It is with great sadness that we report the death of Premanand, the leading Indian campaigner against superstition. He died on Sunday 4 October 2009 after a long battle with cancer, which he fought with grim determination. Roy Brown writes: "Premanand was an inspiration to the entire Humanist movement. I will never forget the first time I saw his anti-superstition show - in Mumbai at the World Humanist Congress in 1999, It was truly sensational.

Harold John Blackham (born 31 March 1903), ‘architect of the British and international Humanist movements’ and ‘founder of the British Humanist Association’, has died at the age of 105 (on 23 January 2009).

Harold Blackham (1903-2009) died on 23 January 2009 at the age of 105. He was a founder of both IHEU and the British Humanist Association. The BHA has provided an obituary.

IHEU regrets to report that Jeanette Klein-von Baumhauer, better known to IHEU as Nettie Klein, died on 29 June 2008 in Amsterdam. Nettie Klein was born in 1927 and had her first contact with international Humanism at the 1962 Oslo Congress. In 1966 she became Honorary (that is, volunteer) Organizing Secretary of IHEU, and from 1982 to 1996 she was General Secretary. In the 1990s she wrote 'Nettie's Column' in International Humanist News. In 1996, at the Mexico City Congress, Nettie Klein was presented with the International Humanist Award, for her long-standing merits for IHEU. Examples of her writing and other work are available on our web site.

James Hemming had been a member of the British Humanist Association (BHA) since its formation in 1963 and gave many years of dedicated service to the Association on its executive committee, as its President and – until his death – as a Vice President. For thirty years, from the 1960s until the 1990s, he played a major role in the BHA’s Education Committee.

One after the other, star after star, they fall, and leave the Humanist sky dimmer.

Sib Narayan Ray died on 26 February 2008 in Santiniketan, India at the age of 85. He served on the executive committee of IHEU from 1952 to 1962.