MUMBAI:Veteran bureaucrat and former Governor of Arunachal Pradesh R.D. Pradhan passed away here on Friday. He was 92.
An IAS officer of the Maharashtra cadre who served in Gujarat, Maharashtra, at the Centre and global positions, Pradhan was one of the architects of drafting the peace accords in Punjab, Assam and Mizoram.
A close confidante of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, he had served as Union Home Secretary during his tenure and later became the Chief Secretary of Maharashtra.
During his long tenure, he served as India’s Resident Representative to UNCTAD and GATT and other international assignments for over a decade, besides working in different capacities with then Union Ministers S.B. Chavan, Buta Singh and Arun Nehru.
He later headed a probe panel that examined various aspects of the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attack by Pakistani terrorists.
Post-retirement, when Pradhan was appointed the Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, he was the first to resign when the new government headed by Prime Minister V.P. Singh came to power at the Centre.