Gopal K. Pillai, IAS, belongs to the Kerala cadre of the Indian Administrative Service (1972 batch) and is today the Union Home Secretary, concurrently holding the post of Secretary of the Department of Justice, Ministry of Law & Justice.

GKP was born in 1949 in Kerala. He grew up in New Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai. His father was a civil servant, as was his grandfather. GKP passed out of Bishop Cottons Boys’ School (Pope House) in 1964 . He then went on to do a B.Sc in physics and chemistry from St Joseph’s College, Bangalore. By the time he appeared for his civil service exams, he had also completed an M.Sc from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Madras,

GKP has a distinguished service record. Among his many appointments at both state and national level, he was Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister of Kerala before becoming Special Secretary in the Commerce Ministry, India's chief negotiator at WTO, and Chairman, Board of Approvals for Special Economic Zones. During the tenure of this last role, over 500 Special Economic Zones as tax-exempt export enclaves zones were approved, and are expected to employ around one million people.

GKP has represented the State and Central Government on delegations to USA, EU, Argentina, Brazil, DRC, Singapore, Japan, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Canada, Bangladesh, Myanmar, China, U.K., Thailand and Slovenia. He is renowned as a tough negotiator on behalf of national interests with a reputation as a thorough gentleman and a stickler for playing by the rule book.

The former commerce secretary cut his negotiating teeth in the insurgency-infested northeast ~ experience that will stand him in good stead in the home portfolio.

As pointed out in a recent article in a leading national daily, “Pillai’s philosophy when dealing with secessionist groups is: Don’t target the gun-slingers, talk to the ideologues. This worked well when the Bodos were raising their voice for ethnic recognition. He helped resolve that by pressing their case for inclusion of the Bodo language in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.

“Pillai is a strong supporter of reform for the security forces. As the principal secretary to then Kerala Chief Minister A K Antony, Pillai did his bit for the state’s police by focusing on improving living conditions in police lines.”

GKP is married to Sudha Pillai, with whom he shares a passion for the movies and Hindi film songs. They met at the met at the National Academy of Administration (now called Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration) in Mussoorie during their training administrative services.

GKP's leitmotive could well be: there is work to be done and problems to be solved and ingenuity and out of the box thinking are both approaches he has used. Pillai anecdotally recalls, as a young deputy collector of Quilon, taking Sudha to the movies, the tickets paid for by selling old newspapers to the kabadiwalla!

Sudha is currently the Union Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment. The Pillai’s have two children, a son and a daughter.