Padmanabha Acharya

Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya (born: 8 Oct. 1931)^[1] is an Indian politician. He was appointed Governor of Nagaland after President Pranab Mukherjee accepted resignation of Tripura Governor Vakkom Purushothaman.^[2][3] He also took the oath as the Hon'ble Governor of Assam (additional charge) on 12 December 2014.^[4]

He was credited for planning University of Delhi's Gyanodya Express to North East of India.

Acharya (P.B. Acharya), son of late Shri Balakrishna and late Smt. Radha was born on 8 October 1931 at Udupi in Karnataka State. He started his education up to Matriculation in Christian High School, Udupi. He was the first batch student of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial College, Udupi (1949–51). He did his Graduation - BA (Hons), B.Com and L.L.B. from Mumbai University.

Shri P.B. Acharya was the activist of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) from 1951 to 1977 and held responsibility of various posts including All India President of ABVP in 1969. In 1975 he was forced to become an underground Sangh worker to fight the Emergency. He was elected as Senate Member to the Mumbai University from Commerce Graduate Constituency. Shri P.B. Acharya was a member of Academic Council (1988-1991) and Executive Council Member (1981-1991) of Mumbai University.

He was the founder General Secretary of Student Experience in Inter-state Living (SEIL) and engaged in SEIL Project from 1967 – exchange of students from North East tribal States and vice versa. He was also the founder and General Secretary of the Indian National Fellowship Centre (INFC), an NGO registered in 1975, with an objective to strengthen brotherhood/fellowship and Nationalism in North East and their strategic border areas having branches in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya.

Shri P.B. Acharya became an active political worker during the Emergency in 1977 and elected as Ward President of Janata Party, Juhu, Mumbai in 1977. In 1980, Shri Acharya became member of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). He was elected as the BJP President of North West District in 1987 and later in 1989 has become the Committee Member of Mumbai BJP. In 1991, he was elected as National Executive Member, BJP, in-charge of North Eastern States of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland. He was also All India National Secretary of the BJP and in-charge of North Eastern States from 1995-2002. In 2002, he was the National Executive Member with the charge of Kerala & Lakshadweep and in 2005 of Tamil Nadu. Shri Acharya was national in-charge of SC/ST Morcha and Co-convenor of Overseas Friends of BJP and National Prabhari of North East India Sampark Cell.

Shri P.B. Acharya was actively engaged "My Home is India", a Project of ABVP for the tribal children from North East, were invited by Mumbai families for education. Several students lived at his residence for 3 to 10 years (1969–79). He was involved in the activities (since 1975) of Academy for Indian Tribal Dialects at Rani Ma Gaidinlu Bhavan – a publication wing of INFC and published 10 booklets on Tribal Nationalist leaders like Rani Ma Gaidinlu (Nagaland), U.Tirot Singh and Jaban Bay (Meghalaya), Dr. Dying Ering and Narottam (Arunachal Pradesh) and also publication of tribal proverbs, folk-tales and poems.

Shri P.B. Acharya was associated with Janata Kalyan Kendra, Registered Trust, Mumbai for backward community service oriented member organization. He was also associated with a reputed Educational Trust Mumbai as Treasurer, Secretary, Chairman, President – for the last 35 years as a life Member of the Trust running educational institutes, Schools and Colleges, Architecture College, MCVC College, Junior Commerce College and Centre for Development and Advanced Computing (CDAC) Institute.

Shri Acharya is widely travelled and has visited many countries like USA, Canada, Europe, Mexico, China, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. He travelled with educated youth for 25 years all over India and visited North Eastern strategic border areas of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura nearly 100 times. Also visited strategic border areas like Andaman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Ladakh and many other parts of India.

   Languages known :

   Speak, Write & Read            -           Konkani, Marathi, Hindi, Kannada & English

   Speak & understand              -           Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, Gujarati

   Understand                            -           Assamese, Bengali, Adi (Arunachal),

                                                               Nagamese, Manipuri.

Shri Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya is married to Smt. Kavita Acharya and has three sons and one daughter (all married) and 8 grand children.

Shri P.B. Acharya belongs to Karnataka and settled in Mumbai.

He also took over additional charge of the Governor of Tripura from 21 July 2014.

References