Thomas Bain

Thomas R. W. Bain (born c. 1964 ) is known for intelligence work done behind the Iron Curtain in 1988 under the pseudonym "Orange". He is currently a dean at the International School of Project Management in New Delhi, India.

In the summer of 1991, Bain led a group of young European enthusiasts from different European Union (EU) Member States during a 2-day meeting in Romainmôtier, Switzerland on the theme "An EU Constitution". The same year he initiated a process in the Budapest University of Economic Sciences (Currently Corvinus University of Budapest) that led to the attribution of a Doctorate Honoris Causa (see Honorary degree) to the President of the EU Commission Jacques Delors (attributed in 1994). He is a member of the UK European Movement and the French Mouvement Européen. He has taken part in the UK Liberal Democrats Brussels Chapter, and has been a close friend of UK Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg during his European years. In 1993, as shadow director projects for Fidesz, in the Hungarian Ministry of Interior, he revised the firstly refused Hungarian application for the EU. His draft was approved by both the EU Parliament and the EU Commission, paving the way for an accession to the EU for Hungary in the first round of enlargement of the EU. At the same time, Bain has been a public opinion maker in Hungary, with a series of articles published in the Budapest Sun, and the Budapest Week. He has held several postings with the European Commission, including as a diplomat in New Delhi, India.

In 1991, out of idealism, he set up the trainee's newsletter "Le Piston" (nepotism) in the European Commission, and denounced several scandals. For this, he was tortured by the French Direction de la surveillance du territoire (DST) for more than two hours. The "Piston", which lasted for 4 years, is considered by the grapevine in Brussels to be one of the elements that forced the European Commission to adopt a reform including contractual and financial control over all expenditures.

In the same 1991 he left for Budapest where he founded the Rugby club the Budapest Exiles RFC

Bain was militant in the French Lycée system, and as délégué sat on two school boards (Conseils d'établissement). In 1988, Bain took the French Ministry of Education to court for discrimination on the ground of nationality after his refusal to take the CAPES (secondary school teachers' exam). He won his case in 1992 under European law, opening the secondary school exams to foreign European nationals in France and several other countries of the EU.

As soon as 1988 he realised to potential of IT for the dyslexic, in particular the possibility of correcting himself before printing. In 1991–1992 he worked with Microsoft managers in Budapest to determine how to create grammar correctors in Microsoft Word. Bain established the relationship between a database structure of language rules (encoded), and the scientific structural linguistic approach developed in Nanterre University. The matter was taken up as a research project in Harvard University, and finally when it came to be in MS Word, the grammar corrector logic enabled Microsoft to also improve the spelling correctors.

Bain was born in London. He lived Kingston upon Thames attending prep school at Highfield School (Liphook, Hampshire). He suffered from Dyslexia, and made slow progress in the educational system. In 1982 he moved to Spain, and took up Hispanic Studies in a small private college in Salamanca where he met up with friends of Golo Mann. Upon return to France he qualified for the Classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles. He accomplished his Khâgne in the Lyceé Jules Ferry. The same year he discovered a new archeological area at Les Baux-de-Provence. He accomplished his BA Humanities in the radical Paris Nanterre University. He completed M. Phil at the Geneva-based IUEE (Institute for European Studies), and later attended the doctoral seminars of Wlad Godzich in the University of Geneva.