Tirunellai Narayana Iyer Seshan (15 December 1932 – 10 November 2019) was an Indian civil servant and bureaucrat who served with the Indian Administrative Service. After serving in various positions in Madras and in various ministries of the Central Government, he served as the 18th Cabinet Secretary of India in 1989. He was appointed the 10th Chief Election Commissioner of India (1990–96) and became known for his electoral reforms. He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award for government service in 1996. Early life and education Tirunellai Narayana Iyer Seshan was born on 15 December 1932 in Thirunellai Village in Palghat, Kerala. He was youngest of six siblings and his father was a lawyer in a district court. He completed his schooling from Basel Evangelical Mission Higher Secondary School and intermediate from Government Victoria College, Palakkad where he was a contemporary of E. Sreedharan. Though both of them were selected for Engineering in JNTU Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh, T. N. Seshan decided to join Madras Christian College (MCC). He obtained his Bachelor of Science (Honors) degree in physics from the Madras Christian College and later taught there from 1950 to 1952. In 1953, he had left Madras Christian College and cleared the police service examination but did not join. He cleared the UPSC civil services examination in 1954 and joined the IAS as a trainee of 1955 Tamil Nadu cadre. Career Seshan was appointed an apprentice administrator, as an assistant collector, for a year at Coimbatore, as a trainee of the Academy of Administration in Delhi. He was first appointed sub-collector in Dindigul. He moved to the Secretariat for Rural Development in Madras (now Chennai) and appointed director of programs and deputy secretary, where he managed a local administration programme for panchayats, from 1958 to 1962. In 1962, he was appointed as the director of transport of Madras (now Tamil Nadu). In 1964, he was appointed collector of Madurai district. After two and a half years, he went to study at Harvard University on Edward S. Mason Fellowship where he earned a master's degree in public administration in 1968. At Harvard, he developed a connection with Subramanian Swamy who was his associate professor. After his return in 1969, he was appointed as secretary to the Atomic Energy Commission. From 1972 to 1976, he served as joint secretary at the Department of Space. In 1976, he returned to Tamil Nadu and was appointed the