Shri Balmiki Prasad Singh is a distinguished scholar, thinker and public servant. H.E. the Governor was born on 1.1.1942 in Bihar. He was educated in a village school and subsequently at the universities of Patna and Oxford. He passed his M.A. in Political Science from Patna University, Patna, standing first in first class with record marks and several gold medals. He became a lecturer in Political Science in Patna University at the age of nineteen.

Shri B.P. Singh was appointed to the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1964. He has since been the recipient of several awards and fellowships, including the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1982-84) and Queen Elizabeth Fellowship (1989-90). He is also recipient of Gulzari lal Nanda Award for Outstanding public service from the President of India in 1998 and Man of Letters Award from His Holiness the Dalai Lama in 2003.

Over the past four decades Shri B.P. Singh has held a variety of important positions within Assam as well as in the Government of India. He was Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment & Forest (1993-95), Culture Secretary (1995-97) and Home Secretary (1997-99) in Government of India.

As an international civil servant, Shri B.P. Singh served as Executive Director and Ambassador at the World Bank during 1999-2002 representing India, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

Shri B.P. Singh has also been Chancellor of the Central University of Tibetan Studies, Sarnath and Chief Editor of the South Asia Series on “Perspectives on Economics, Technology and Governance” of Oxford University Press, New York, He was Mahatma Gandhi National Fellow at New Delhi. 

Shri B.P. Singh is currently Governor of Sikkim.

Shri B.P. Singh has authored five books including The Problem of Change - A Study of North-East India (1987); India’s Culture: The State, the Arts and Beyond (1998) and Bahudha and the post-9/11 World (2008), all published by Oxford University Press, New Delhi. In addition he has authored several articles and monographs on politics, culture, ecology and public administration. He is also Chief Editor of the The Millennium Book on New Delhi, OUP (2001).

Shri B.P Singh was married to Late Smt. Karuna Singh who resided at Raj Bhavan, Gangtok, Sikkim till the passing away on 01.04.2010.