R. D. Pradhan

R.D. Pradhan is an ex-administrator and bureaucrat in the Indian Government. He was the Union Home Secretary in the Rajiv Gandhi government and played a major role in the signing of the Assam Accord and the Mizo Accord. He has held Secretary-level positions at the international and national levels in the areas of commerce, defence and home. He was also a Governor of Arunachal Pradesh. He was in service of the government of India for 36 years.

R.D. Pradhan was an IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre. He joined as a Bombay State officer. For the next five years he worked in Gujarat. He later was an Indian representative diplomat in international trade and commerce in Geneva for ten years. In December 2008 he was appointed to lead a two-man panel to investigate the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Union Home Secretary

Rajiv Gandhi, who was then the General Secretary of the Congress party, was impressed by the work done by Pradhan, who as Chief Secrtary of Maharashtra, had promptly handled and provided administrative services during the Bhiwandi communal riots of 1982. When Rajiv became the Prime Minister in 1984, he invited Pradhan to join his government. Pradhan chose the post of Union Home Secretary which Rajiv accepted.

Pradhan worked under Home Ministers S.B. Chavan and Buta Singh, and Minister of State for Home Arun Nehru.

The Punjab problem

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