Former Nehru Memorial Museum director Shakti Sinha dead
A career bureaucrat, Shakti Sinha took voluntary retirement from service in 2013 after stepping down as the finance secretary in the Delhi government due to differences over the new power policy
Shakti Sinha, personal secretary to late Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and former director of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, died on Monday. He was 63.
An Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of the 1979 batch of the Arunachal Pradesh-Goa-Mizoram and Union Territory cadre, popularly known as AGMUT, Sinha was considered an influential member of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) during the Vajpayee regime, where he was a joint secretary in the late 1990s. Sinha was Vajpayee’s private secretary from 1998 to 2000.
A career bureaucrat, Sinha took voluntary retirement from service in 2013 after stepping down as finance secretary in the Delhi government. Describing his stint in Delhi as “challenging,” Sinha had said he wanted to work outside the government.
“Differences of opinions are common at any workplace and I feel it is healthy. I’m not quitting because of any differences, but because I want to do something new,” Sinha had said, remarking on his reasons for quitting on August 11, 2013. “I want to focus my energy on issues such as economic policy and governance.”
Sinha was a postgraduate in history from Delhi University. At Nehru Memorial, he oversaw the Museum of Prime Ministers project, among others. He took charge of the memorial in 2016.
His funeral was held at the Lodhi Road crematorium in the capital.
Many condoled his passing. “Shocked to hear about Shakti Sinha’s demise. He was a member of the Governing Board of India Foundation and was scheduled to address a conference going on at Leh this afternoon. A humble and unassuming yet erudite and intellectual being… a great loss. Deepest condolences,” Bharatiya Janata Party leader Ram Madhav tweeted.
“Very very sad to hear about the untimely demise of Shakti Sinha, go back into memory lane and many years of Theatre in Education Company at the National school of Drama were greatly helped by Shakti ji as he was the Education Secretary in Delhi those days,” tweeted Vani Tripathi Tikoo, a member of the Central Board of Film Certification.
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