Anil Bordia is an Indian educationist, social activist and former civil servant, widely respected for his contributions to the Indian education sector. The Government of India honoured him, in 2010, with Padma Bhushan, the third highest civilian award, for his services to the fields of education and literature on education. He was born on 5 May 1934 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India. He secured his post graduate degree from the St. Stephen's College, and, later, passed the Indian Administrative Service examination in 1957. Anil Bordia joined Indian Administrative Service in 1957 for a civil services career which spanned 35 years, till retired from the service, as the Union Education Secretary in 1992. During his civil service, he was involved in many major educational projects and policy formulation assignments such as the Education Policy of 1986.

During his public service, he launched the Bihar education project from 1977 through 1980, where he assembled many voluntary organisations, academic institutions and public resource centres to work towards achieving total literacy in the state. He was also behind the Mahila Samakhya project, a women's education project which has participation from various women's movements. In 1987, he launched the Shikha Karmi program for eradicating illiteracy from the state of Rajasthan. Under the program, society monitored schools with locally trained teachers were introduced which was reported to be successful in the universalisation of primary education in the state.