D. Sivanandhan

Sivanandhan was born at Pollachi in Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu, and joined the Indian Police Service in the 1976 batch, serving in the Maharashtra cadre. He was deputy director of the Intelligence Bureau between 1987 and 1991 and joint director of the Central Bureau of Investigation between 2001 and 2004.

He served in the Mumbai crime branch as additional commissioner and later joint commissioner of police for crime, from 1993 to 1995 and again from 1998 to 2001, a period in which he was credited with breaking up organised crime syndicates in the city. He was commissioner of police in Nagpur and Thane, and became Commissioner of Police of Mumbai in 2009, after the attacks on the city in November 2008; he went on to serve as Director General of Police of Maharashtra until his retirement in 2011. His work included implementing the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act, establishing training and welfare facilities for police personnel, and setting up public safety websites.

Sivanandhan founded Mumbai Roti Bank in December 2017 and acts as its mentor and guide. The organisation collects and distributes cooked food to people who cannot afford meals, and from January 2020 also began operating its own kitchens.

The foundation reports serving around 21,000 meals a day, providing food to patients and their families at hospitals and cancer centres, and supporting school attendance and nutrition programmes. It has extended its work beyond Mumbai to cities including Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai, Coimbatore and Cuttack, operating across several Indian states.

Sivanandhan received the Police Medal for Meritorious Service in 1993, an internal security medal in 1998 and the President's Police Medal for Distinguished Service in 2000.[2][3][4]