S.Y. QURAISHI joined the Indian Administrative Service in 1971 and rose to become the seventeenth chief election commissioner of India. He was featured in the Indian Express' list of 100 Most Powerful Indians of 2011 and 2012. He introduced a number of electoral reforms, such as the creation of a voter education division, expenditure monitoring division, the India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management, and launched the National Voters Day. In October 2017, he was appointed the ambassador of democracy by International IDEA (Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance), Stockholm, of which he is a board member. He is the author of An Undocumented Wonder: The Making of the Great Indian Election.