Indian PhD student at London School of Economics killed on bike in London

LONDON: A 33-year-old Indian student from Gurgaon, pursuing her PhD at the London School of Economics, was killed after being hit by a lorry while cycling back home on March 19.
Cheistha Kochhar died on the spot. Her husband, Prashant, a software engineer, was a few yards ahead of her on his bike when the accident occurred. He heard a loud thud and rushed back to help Cheistha.Police officers and paramedics rushed to the spot and found her seriously injured. She died soon after. “The lorry, believed to be a garbage vehicle, stopped at the scene. The driver is helping police with the probe,” police said.
There has been no arrest and inquiries are on.
Cheistha and Prashant had been married for just over a year. Her father, Lt Gen Dr SP Kochhar, who was 23rd Signal Officer-in-Chief of the Indian Army, and her elder brother Raghav have rushed to the UK.
Born in Bareilly, UP, she had been living in Gurgaon before moving to London with her husband last Sept to pursue a four-year PhD in organisational behaviour management on a full scholarship. Before that she worked for NITI Aayog where she set up the nudge unit for behavioural sciences, and also worked with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation at the Centre for Social and Behaviour Change.
She studied economics at Delhi University, and later at the Universities of Chicago, Ashoka and Pennsylvania.
“Not only was she intelligent and hard-working, she was compassionate too,” her father said. “Her good nature was infectious. She was popular and helpful and made a mark for herself at a young age. She was a nationalist. She was very clear in her mind she would get educated in the UK and then go back to India. We are here to see that we take her remains back to India,” he said.