Dr.
Markandey Rai is
born on 1st February 1952 in a village Ujiar, Ballia, UP
(India). He is Ph. D. in Statistics and he has taught in many
universities starting his career from the Patna University as a
lecturer in the P. G. Department of Statistics. He joined the
United Nations Human Settlements Programme, which is called
UN-Habitat in short on the 20 January 1992 at its Headquarters
in Nairobi Kenya. He retired in February 2014 as the Chief of
the U.N. Inter-Agency Coordination, Global Parliamentarians and
Trade Unions Programme of UN-HABITAT. He has served UN-HABITAT
on various positions in more than twenty-two years of his
service to the United Nations. He was recruited in 1992 to
develop Urban and city Statistics. He was pioneer for
establishing Global Urban Observatories and publications of the
Compendium of Human Settlement Statistics and Human Settlements
Atlas periodically.
He has been honored with "Hind Rattan Award in January 2006 in
New Delhi. He is an "Ambassador for Peace" conferred by the
Global Peace Federation in March 2009. He has also been
recognized for meritorious achievements by several prestigious
forums and organizations internationally including by the
International Biographical Centre of Cambridge, England; Global
Peace Foundation as a member of the Global Leadership Council
and elected Board member of the Global Peace Youth Corps (GPYC),
Africa. He has been appointed Senior Advisor to International
Ecological Safety Collaboration Organization and Deputy Director
of the international Ecological Safety Evaluation Institution in
Beijing, China. Recently in March 2017 in the Global Peace
Convention of GPF in Manila Dr. Rai is elected President of
Global Peace and Development Service Alliance (GPDSA).
Life Sketch
Dr. Markandey Rai was brought up a middle class joint family in
village Ujiar, in Ballia District of Utter Pradesh (UP), India.
He has four bothers of his own and jointly he has12 brothers and
3 sisters. All brothers and sisters were brought up together in
the same standard of living. His father was in Bihar police and
he had four brothers and two sisters.
His mother was a widow since his father died in May 1957.
However, She was the head of the family designated by uncles.
She was respected mother of all his brothers and sisters. She
died on 10th October 2009 when Dr. Rai was in New York for some
meetings in the UN Headquarters.
His childhood had seen many difficulties but he never felt
demoralized or in a low mood. His inspiration was his guardian
of the family who was younger brother of his father. All 12
brothers lived together; eat together and studied together under
one roof in village. All studied in the native village school up
to primary under mango trees sitting on ground and writing on
wooded slate with liquid chalk.
His schooling was in the village and moved to the Queen's
College Varanasi for his intermediate degree. He graduated from
the Banaras Hindu University.
.
He moved to Bhagalpur University in 1973. The academic session
was a year behind and without any loss of time he was admitted
in the same session, which was 1972-74 for the Master Degree
course in 1973. He joined Honors course in Statistics also
simultaneously in Marwari College since there was no
under-graduate course in the university or in any other
constituent college of Bhagalpur university. He did very well in
both the examinations. However session was delayed more and he
completed his Master Degree in 1976.
The question arose what to do next. He wanted to join some job
and also to pursue his Ph. D. degree. So he applied in a project
in Zoology Department of the Bhagalpur University but he was not
successful due to local politics. He joined Ph. D. Course in
Patna University and at the same time he started looking for a
job. Luckily he got both. He was enrolled for Ph. D. in the PG
Department of Statistics, Patna University and also got a
temporary job in the A.N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies. He
moved in the hostel of the Institute and started working there.
He had worked just for 20days in the project that he got UGC
scholarship for doing Ph. D. He consulted his maternal uncle
Prof Haridwar Rai and he advised to go for the scholarship for
Ph.D. degree. He again moved to the Patna University campus.
Time in Patna was very strugleful and he moved several houses
and busy in teaching, politics and social work. His Ph. D. work
became secondary. However, he continued it in parallel and with
a lot of pressure. Same time there were some disputes and
opposition from a group and an enquiry committee was
investigating about anomaly in the appointment. It was indeed
time for struggle and resources were limited. Only God was in
his side and a bunch of trusted friends and well-wishers who
never let him down. He crossed all the barriers and stumbling
blocks. He secured a permanent position as lecturer in the Post
Graduate Department of Statistics in April 1979 and secured his
Ph. D degree in 1982.
Dr. Rai has written and published several academic and
scientific papers as well as publications of UN books to his
credit. He has widely travelled and attended several conferences
of scientific as well as of political nature. He is life member
and elected office bearer of several academic, cultural and
social bodies in the world.
He got a chance to go to Colombo for a UNDP funded programme to
develop curriculum for agriculture Statistics. Two persons were
selected from India and one was himself. His stay in Colombo for
one and half months gave him gateway to foreign assignments. He
accepted to go to Tanzania first to teach in the University of
Dar-Es'-Salam in the Department of Demography and Statistics in
1983. However, due to harsh living condition and his wife's ill
health he returned to Patna in less than one year. He was again
offered assignment of teaching from Nairobi University, Nairobi
Kenya in the year 1986 and he took long time to decide due to
heavy pressure from family to not to go abroad and try to earn
more through teaching in other coaching institutions or by doing
tuition which was against his nature. He had some family
responsibilities, which required more funds on a regular basis.
Ultimately he decided to take another chance to go to Kenya so
that he can support his family financially better. After a long
conversation and arguments and completing the responsibility of
marriage of his youngest brother Dr. Ramesh Chandra Rai who is
currently Professor and Head of Political Science in the
Bhagalpur University Bhagalpur, he decided to go to Nairobi in
November 1987.
He landed on 4th November 1987 to Nairobi and started teaching
in the Nairobi University in the Department of Mathematics and
Statistics in the Chiromo campus of the university. However he
had bigger ambition to join UN or go to European countries or
USA for better life and broader spectrum for service. He got
some consultancy with UN-Habitat initially but finally Dr. Rai
gave his consent to join UN-Habitat, which was at that time
called United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (UNCHS) on
10th January 1992 and he started working from 20th January 1992
as an International Professional Civil Service Staff as
Statistician in the Research and Development Division of
UN-Habitat
Dr. Rai worked in UN-Habitat till his retirement on 28th
February 2014 when he turned 62 years old on 1st February 2014.
He worked on various positions including the President of the
UN-Habitat Staff Association. Latter on when UNON was created,
the Associations were merged to have one Staff Union at Nairobi
Duty Station from 1999. He was elected the Vice President and
then the President of the Nairobi Staff Union from 2001-2003. He
was the Chairperson of the Joint Advisory Committee also which
advises all the three head of the agencies UNEP, UNON and
UN-Habitat. He thoroughly enjoyed working with UN-Habitat and
did several challenging work beyond his purview also. He was
instrumental in saving UN-Habitat from merging with UNEP in 1998
when the Advisory Committee appointed by the Secretary General
under the Chairmanship of Dr. Klaus Topher recommended merging
it with UNEP. He wrote a letter to SG and mobilized countries
especially the Kenyan Ambassador to UN to intervene and block
it. He won the battle and UN-Habitat remained independent
programme of UN as part of the Secretariat at the same status as
UNEP.
He feels as if the UN campus as his because he contributed in
erecting a number of monumental structures such as Peace Park on
UN logo with indigenous plant of coffee and tea; UNFCU Bank's
branch; Recreational Centre and others in the name of staff
welfare and administration. UNON health Centre was a great
achievement. Initially it was a small place with only one
surgeon Dr. Mugere and no other facilities. When he visited
UNECA office in Addis Ababa for a CCISUA Staff Assembly, he
realized that there is a mini hospital there where various tests
and other medicines including vaccinations are available. He
demanded for the similar facilities and in steed of a surgeon we
should have GP doctor who can provide some medicine for simple
sickness and can recommend specialist for special nature of
treatment. After some resistance, management agreed that they
will include in the budget from the next biennium and it was
approved by New York. Now Nairobi has a full-fledged health
facility with a number of doctors and health practitioners. He
feels very proud and happy to see that the center is running and
providing services to staff, which saves time and resources and
improve the quality of work for the staff. He insisted that no
vendor or contractor who is providing services to UN office
should exploit their employee's workers including cleaning
company, security companies, electric contractor and gardening
firms. A fair pack policy was introduced for any contractor even
if it costs more to the UN. UN should not allow exploitation in
the campus. This is in a way human rights violation within the
UN campus. UN shall loose our moral values and have no right to
address human rights violation in the world if we do not stop
the same practice by contractors in out offices. Finally the
heads of agencies were convinced to give daily subsistence
allowances to Interns who come from all over the world to work
with UN for some experience and get some credit in their
studies.
As the President of UN-Habitat Staff Association and later as
the President of the Nairobi Staff Union, he participated in
many decision making processes including revitalization of
UN-Habitat and made sure that job security in not negotiable
unless there is serious violation of UN ideals and principles.
He maintained throughout his period and took all risk and pain
to be penalized by the management and bureaucracy including
termination. He had to forgo his own benefits and career
development for the sake of majority. However, God was always in
in his side and he retired honourably in February 2014 with all
respect and love. He retired as Coordinator for the Inter Agency
Coordination and Global Parliamentarians and Trade Unions. He is
a proud UN Civil Servant and lives his retired life in New Delhi
India. One of the achievement he can proud of is that he
organized the first Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on
Housing and Urban Development (APMCHUD) in December 2006 in
Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi which was opened by the President Dr.
APJ Kalam and valedictory statement was to be given by the Prime
Minister Dr. Man Mohan Singh which was delivered by Mr. Mantok
Singh Ahluwalia, Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission
due to delay of PM flight from Japan to New Delhi. Indian
Minister became the Chairperson and the secretariat was set up
in the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi. This first APMCHUD
conference was attended by highest number of member countries
including China and Pakistan at the ministerial level with
biggest delegation from China.
He is appointed Chairman of the BMO of NABET under Quality
Council of India. He is also very active in the Indian Council
of International Relations and member of the Executive Council.
Last but not least he is Executive Director of Youth Vocational
and leadership Programme in Raipur, Chhattisgarh under
Sadafaldeo Foundation of Vihangam Yoga.
Furthermore, he is appointed the President of Foreign Affairs
Committee of the Indian Council for international Cooperation.
He is also the Chancellor of the Indira Gandhi Technological and
Medical Sciences University in Arunachal Pradesh, India.
The Executive Director of UN-Habitat has honoured him with a
certificate of appreciation from UN-Habitat for my distinguished
and dedicated services for more than 22 years. He has also been
awarded Hind Rattan Award in January 2006 in New Delhi on the
eve of Indian Independence Day. Furthermore, He has been awarded
Humanity Achievers Award in 2014 and 2015 for distinguished
services and achievements. His biography has been published in
Marques Who's Who in the World in its 14th edition in 1997.
Recently he has been elected President of the Global Peace and
Development Service Alliance of the Global Peace Foundation (GPF)
convention in March 2017 in Manila, Philippines.
He is enjoying life with my wife Mrs. Gaytri Rai in Delhi and my
son Mr. Siddharth Rai who is an Aeronautical Science graduate
and pilot with Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, Daytona
Beach, Florida USA.
Positions:
* Chancellor, IGTAMS University, AP, India
* President, Foreign Affairs Committee, Indian Council for
International Cooperation
* Chairman: Accreditation Board of BMO of Quality Council of
India
* Senior Advisor: UN-Habitat, Nairobi, Kenya
* Deputy Director, IESEI, Beijing, China
* Executive Director: Synergies Institute, Accra, Ghana
* Advisor: Yuvsatta (Youth for Peace), Chandigarh
* Chairman: UN Joint Advisory council (JAC), UNON, Nairobi,
Kenya
* President: UN Nairobi Staff Union
* Member: Global Leadership Council of Global Peace Foundation (GPF)
* Ambassador: Global Peace Ambassador of GPF
* President, Global Peace and Development Service Alliance of
GPF
* President: Standing committee of Regional and Urban Statistics
(SCORUS) of ISI
Awards and Recognition
* Hind Rattan Award in 2006
* Humanity Achievers Award 2014 and 2015
* UN-Habitat Recognition of Service Award..