Amitabha Pande, a former member of the Indian Administrative Service, retired in 2008 as the Secretary of the Inter State Council of the Government of India, a constitutional machinery for policy co-ordination, federal diversity management and consensus building between the Union of India (i.e. the Central Government) and the States, and among States. Before his tenure in the Inter State Council, Pande spent 35 years in various capacities in the Government of India and the Government of Punjab. In the Government of India he had long tenures at policy levels in the Ministry of Home Affairs, the Ministry of Science & Technology and the Ministry of Defence. In the Government of Punjab he worked at the senior most levels in the Departments of Planning, Science and Technology, Environment and Information and Public Relations. In the mid-nineties he was the Chief Executive Officer of the Indian National Trust for Art & Cultural Heritage (INTACH).  In the eighties, he was the Managing Director of the Punjab Agro Industries Corporation - a Government owned company which spearheaded the process of transforming agriculture industry linkages in the country and was credited as being the architect of the entry of some of the biggest multi-national enterprises in India's agribusiness sector including Pepsico. He has also been involved with the commercialisation of technology through Public Private Partnerships in such diverse spheres as biotechnology, engineering industry, agro-processing and aviation. Pande has a Master's Degree in English Literature from St. Stephens College, Delhi University, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Advanced Studies in Development from the University of Manchester.