Balmiki Prasad Singh

B.P. Singh has also been Chancellor of the Central University of Tibetan Studies, Sarnath for six years and Chief Editor of the South Asia Series on "Perspectives on Economics, Technology and Governance" of Oxford University Press, New York (2000–06).

B.P. Singh served as Executive Director and Ambassador at the World Bank during 1999-2002 representing India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka and was one of the founder members of the Development Gateway Foundation (DGF) and member, Global Environment Facility (GEF), Washington D.C.

Over the past four decades, Shri B.P. Singh has held a variety of important positions within Assam as well as in the Government of India. He was Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forest (1993–95), Culture Secretary (1995–97) and Home Secretary (1997–99) in Government of India. After an incident involving the extension or resignation of the celebrated Indian Police Service officer Kishore Kunal, he was removed from the post of Home Secretary by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee who was displeased with his conduct and made the Health Secretary. During this tenure, a conflict again arose between Kunal and him when Singh did not grant regional cancer centre status to the charitable Mahavir Cancer Institute that Kunal had founded. Then Singh was removed again and sent to a World Bank assignment.

B.P. Singh has authored six books including The Problem of Change-A Study of North-East India (1987); India’s Culture: The State, the Arts and Beyond (1998) and Bahudha and the post-9/11 World (2008), all published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi. He has also published articles and monographs on politics, culture, ecology and public administration. He is Chief Editor of The Millennium Book on New Delhi, OUP (2001).

He has since been the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1982–84), Queen Elizabeth Fellowship (1989–90) and Mahatma Gandhi National Fellow (2007–08). He is also a recipient of Gulzari lal Nanda Award for Outstanding public service from the President of India in 1998 and Man of Letters Award from the Dalai Lama in 2003.

Singh was appointed in 1964 to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS).A former IAS officer of Assam-Meghalaya cadre, Singh was posted in North Lakhimpur and Tezpur as a young district officer. He also held the posts of DC, Kamrup from 1973–75 and Home Commissioner, Assam from 1980-82. He had another stint in Assam from 1990-92 before being posted to Union Home Ministry.

Singh was married to Karuna on 10 March 1961 at Patna while they were in their teens. While B.P. Singh hails from a family of activists (not political leaders), the father of Karuna was Rai Bahadur Ganesh Prasad Rai, who retired as Commissioner in the Government of Bihar.

Balmiki Prasad Singh (born 1 January 1942) was the 14th Governor of Sikkim, India. He is a retired IAS officer and has written books and articles relating to Indian culture, in particular the culture of North-East India. Among his prominent books are Bahudha and the post 9/11 World and The problem of change: a study of North East India.

Singh was born on 1 January 1942 in Begusarai, Bihar. He was educated in a village school and later at the universities of Patna and Oxford. He passed his M.A. in political science from University of Patna in 1960, standing First Class First with record marks and also winning several gold medals. He became a lecturer in the Post-Graduate Department of Political Science at Patna University at the age of nineteen.

Singh hails from a family of activists for Indian independence. His father, Harbansh Narayan Singh was an activist who had participated in the Quit India Movement (1942-1944) and courted imprisonment during this period.