Gopal Krishna Pillai, senior Indian Administrative Service officer of the 1972 batch, is going to be the next Union Home Secretary. Pillai, who is serving as the Union Commerce Secretary, will take over from current Union Home Secretary Madhukar Gupta in mid-June. Gupta is slated to be appointed as the governor of Tripura.
Union Home Secretary G K Pillai will visit Srinagar on Wednesday to review the law and order situation in violence-hit Kashmir. He is scheduled to meet Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and some top officials of the state government, official sources said.
Former commerce secretary Gopal Krishna Pillai on Tuesday took over as the new Union Home Secretary after the superannuation of Madhukar Gupta.
Exclusive! Home Secretary G K Pillai on his tenure
Tahawwur Hussain Rana, an accused in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, has been extradited to India from the US. Former home secretaries believe he will be convicted and could face the death penalty. Rana was an associate of David Coleman Headley, who played a key role in the attacks. The extradition is seen as a significant achievement for India and a message to terrorists that they will face justice. Rana's testimony is expected to provide valuable information about the planning and execution of the attacks.
The FBI has provided access to agents from India's domestic and external intelligence agencies to the information it has gathered on David Headley and his associate Tahawwur Husain Rana, who is also in the FBI's custody.
Amid growing concerns about the relations between India and China, Chinese ambassador Zhang Yan met Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Tuesday.
India on Thursday sought clarifications and additional information from leading Chinese telecom manufacturing firm ZTE on the issue of security clearance to their equipment.
The next course of action against the Naxalites, who blew up a rail track in West Bengal that resulted in a collision between a passenger train and a good train, would be taken shortly following a high-level meeting, Union Home Secretary G K Pillai said.
Former Union Home Secretary RK Singh is expected to join the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday afternoon.
The government on Tuesday said it follows a proper procedure in ordering interception of telephones and a high-level committee reviews each case individually before giving its final approval.
Disapproving the comments made by Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on the eve of Indo-Pak talks, External Affairs Minister S M Krishna on Wednesday said his whole visit to Islamabad was 'under-pinned' by the remarks, the timing of which was 'very unfortunate.'
Union Home Secretary G K Pillai's off-the-cuff statement on Friday -- about Hyderabad being the capital of Telangana after its formation -- has triggered a political thunderstorm in New Delhi.Member of Parliament from coastal Andhra and Rayalseema, who have strongly protested against the Centre's decision to create Telangana and have been meeting the party's top brass to plead their case, were left aghast by Pillai's statement."Who is GK Pillai to say this," said a Cong MP.
As P Chidambaram came in the line of fire over the withdrawal of three FIRs against an hotelier, former Union home secretary G K Pillai on Friday defended him saying the home minister had clearly instructed his officials not to take any decision and asked only to convey the law ministry's advice.
Union Home Secretary G K Pillai has said the home ministry insists that state police should play a key role with assistance from central security forces to tackle the Maoists menace.
The anti-talks faction of the proscribed United Liberation Front of Assam on Friday criticised former Union Home Secretary G K Pillai for the comments he had made in a seminar in Guwahati a few days back and stated that the bigwigs in the bureaucracy in the 'colonial' Indian government should better do away with the habit of belittling the ULFA, the people of Assam and their 'revolution'.
The government on Friday said the probe into bulletproof jackets scam, in which a home ministry officer has been arrested, is on and it was trying to find out whether any other official was involved in it.
Eight member-delegation of the United Liberation Front of Asom led by chairman Aurobinda Rajkhowa, already in the national capital, will hold talks with the Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Thursday after a introductory meeting with the Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Naxalism is a wake-up call for the country, former Union home secretary G K Pillai said in New Delhi, while blaming poor governance for the rise in the problem.
The panel's claim assumes significance as it was Pillai, few months ago, who alleged that Chidambaram as home minister 'bypassed him' and had rewritten the affidavit.
Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Wednesday discussed the situation in Nagaland with Governor Nikhil Kumar and Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio in the wake of Manipur government opposing National Socialist Council of Nagaland-Isak Muivah leader T Muivah's visit to his village.
The National Investigation Agency, which was formed to investigate cases relating to terrorism, was not roped in for the investigation into the Pune blast.
Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Saturday visited border areas of Suchetgarh and Abdullian in Jammu region to review situation along the International Border.
The home secretary said software companies in India were now realising this fact and they were taking their own measures to protect themselves. "And the government is also in partnership with many of the companies to make an effort to provide adequate security," he said.
Pillai said that it was surprising to see that the minister, who is competent to revise the affidavit, was taking cover behind the home secretary.
Union Home Secretary G K PIllai has said Hyderabad will be the capital of Telangana. MPs from the non-Telangana areas will meet Home Minister P Chidambaram and Law Minister Veerappa Moily.
Terming Thursday's attack on a passenger train in Jharkhand as a 'cowardly act', Union Home Secretary G K Pillai said on Friday that Maoists were terrorists and he had no sympathy for them.
Concerned over spurt in Naxal violence, Union Home Secretary Gopal K Pillai will arrive in Raipur on Monday on a two-day visit to Chhattisgarh during which he will take stock of the security situation, redeployment of paramilitary forces and visit some worst Maoist-hit areas.
Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Tuesday said the West Bengal government had committed a mistake by negotiating the release of an abducted police official in exchange of releasing tribal women, who were reportedly supporters of Maoists. "I think they (the state government) did make mistake. They should have acted a little tough," Pillai said when asked by a TV channel whether the West Bengal government made a 'fatal mistake' while carrying out the swap.
Former Union Home Secretary G K Pillai on Thursday said that the affidavit submitted to the Gujarat high court in 2009 about Lashkar-e-Taiyba links of Ishrat Jahan and her accomplices, who were killed in an alleged fake encounter in 2004, was changed at the "political level".
The Income Tax department and Enforcement Directorate have been asked by the government to pull up their socks and expedite disposal of cases related to terror financing in various parts of the country.
Set to retire on June 30, Home Secretary GK Pillai said that if militant leadership in Kashmir wants it can join the peace process. But a dialogue is not something that these jihadists are looking at. With declining support from locals the terrorists in Valley may be down but not out, reports Vicky Nanjappa.
Former Kerala Chief Minister and veteran CPI(M) leader V S Achuthanandan, a key figure in Kerala's political history, died on Monday at the age of 101. He was a founding member of the CPI(M) and served as Chief Minister from 2006 to 2011.
'Maritime security is not easy. There are lakhs of fishing boats, and it is almost impossible to monitor each one of them,' says Home Secretary G K Pillai.
Handing over of United Liberation Front of Asom leader Anup Chetia to India, cooperation in anti-terror steps and firing along the international border will be high on the agenda during the home secretary-level talks between India and Bangladesh beginning Wednesday.
Union Home Secretary GK Pillai held a high level review meeting of the law and order problem arising out of the movement for a seperate Telangana state. It was attended by senior officials of the security agencies. Pillai also had interacted with the state administration.
Home Secretary, Government of India, G K Pillai has assured that the Sanjay Dutt-Bipasha Basu drama will release as planned.
The apex court-appointed Justice Rajendra Mal Lodha committee moved the Supreme Court seeking a direction to appoint former home secretary G K Pillai as an observer to guide' the Board of Control for Cricket in India in the administrative works including award of contracts, transparency norms and holding of future domestic, international and Indian Premier League matches.
'Even though he knew full well that the manipulation went against the facts as he knew them, Pillai nonchalantly contented himself with stating that since the file came from the minister himself, he just passed it on as it was,' says B S Raghavan.
Singh, now a Bharatiya Janata Party member of Parliament from Bihar, said what was the reason for the change of the affidavit when the Intelligence Bureau had said that Ishrat had links with Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists.