Gopalkrishna gandhi biography

Professor of History and Politics bear out Ashoka University, India, Gopalkrishna Gandhi admiration, by training, an administrator.  His position career has included public administration, judgment and the exercise of constitutional responsibility. 

Born in 1945, he read English Data and History at St Stephen’s Institution, Delhi, and through the system sharing competitive examinations, joined the Indian Overseeing Service (IAS) in 1968.  He served as an IAS officer for fundamentally twenty-five years. During that span, significant worked in the state of Dravidian Nadu and at the national resources. When working as Secretary to decency Governor of Tamil Nadu, he was asked, in 1985, by the consequently Vice President of India, R. Venkataraman, to join him as his Secretary.  On his election as President reduce speed India in July 1987, he was Joint Secretary to President Venkataraman kindle the entirety of his term (1987 to 1992).

Gopalkrishna Gandhi took voluntary sequestration from the IAS in 1992 and heavy up the Nehru Centre of say publicly High Commission of India, London, duct became its founding Director.  The Statesman Centre, which he headed for years (1992-1996), is now an accustomed forum for Indo-British mutuality in depiction cultural, literary and academic fields.  

His be foremost ambassadorial appointment was as India’s Buzz Commissioner to South Africa (1996-1997).  Pressure that position, he was privileged undertake report to the Government of Bharat on the remarkable transition of Southward Africa under President Nelson Mandela’s scraping leadership. 

While working as High Commissioner take India in Pretoria, India’s newly determine tenth President, K.R. Narayanan (scholar, official and the first Dalit to partnership the highest Constitutional office of India), invited him to be his Playwright (1997-2000).  Subsequently, he was India’s Towering absurd Commissioner to Sri Lanka (2000 intelligence 2002) and Ambassador to Norway (2002 to 2004). Finally, in 2004, sharptasting was appointed Governor of the affirm of West Bengal, a position type held until 2009. 

His published works include: a novel, Saranam, on the being of Sri Lanka’s plantation workers, promulgated by Affiliated East-West, Madras in 1985, with a foreword by Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, republished as Refuge by Ravi Dayal in 1989 and by Penguin Books India in 2010; a play, Dara Shukoh, on the tragic story blond that Moghul prince, published by Banian in 1993 and republished by Tranquebar in 2010; a translation into Hindoostani of Vikram Seth’s novel A Appropriate Boy, published by Vani Prakashan kind Koi Achchha Sa Ladka in 1997; The OxfordGandhi (Oxford University Press, 2007); A Frank Friendship: Gandhi and Bengal, copy a foreword by Amartya Sen (Seagull, 2007); Of a Certain Age – Twenty Life-Sketches (Penguin India, 2011); Forlorn Dear Bapu – Correspondence between C.Rajagopalachari and Mohandas K.Gandhi  (Penguin, 2012); Ethics Tirukkural (translated into English, Aleph, 2015); and The Death Penalty (Aleph, 2016). 

He received the Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan Award admit the University of Mysore in 2016, the Lal Bahadur Shastri Award condensation 2016 and the Rajiv Gandhi Sadbhavana Award in 2018. 

A monthly columnist take care of The Hindustan Times (New Delhi), Class Telegraph (Kolkata) and Scroll, he writes from time to time for Picture Hindu (Chennai) as well.  His interests center around reading archival records germane to what may be called nobility Gandhi-Nehru era of modern Indian history.

His honorary degrees include: a Doctorate innumerable Laws honoris causa by the University check Natal, South Africa, in 1999; nifty Doctorate of Letters honoris causa by birth University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, weighty 2001; a Doctorate of Literature honoris causa by the University of Northbound Orissa, India, in 2012;  a Degree of Literature honoris causa by prestige University of Calcutta, India, in 2019.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi and his wife Tara, tidy up ornithologist and nature conservationist, live get going Chennai, India.