Prof. Gopalkrishna Gandhi

Prof. Gopalkrishna Gandhi is a former IAS officer who served as Secretary to the President of India and as High Commissioner to South Africa and Sri Lanka, among other administrative and diplomatic posts. As a member of the Indian Administrative Service in its Tamil Nadu cadre, Gandhi trained in the Cauvery delta's Thanjavur district and worked in the contrastively dry tracts of South Arcot, North Arcot and Pudukkottai, preparing the first district gazetteer for Pudukkottai. He worked among the tea plantation labourers of Indian origin in Sri Lanka as First Secretary in the High Commission of India's Kandy office from 1978 to 1982. He was later secretary to the Governor of Tamil Nadu, secretary to the Vice President of India and secretary to the President of India. He was the first Director of the Nehru Centre at the High Commission of India, London; High Commissioner for India in South Africa and Lesotho; High Commissioner to Sri Lanka; and Ambassador to Norway and Iceland. From 2004 to 2009 he was the 23rd Governor of West Bengal. Professor Gandhi has edited the Essential Writings of Mahatma Gandhi for Oxford University Press (2008).