Jairam Ramesh

Jairam Ramesh is Member of the Rajya Sabha, the Upper House of India’s Parliament, representing the State of Andhra Pradesh.

A former Union Minister, Jairam Ramesh has held several portfolios in the Union Government, including Rural Development (2011-2014), Drinking Water and Sanitation (2011-2013), Environment and Forests (2009-2011), Commerce and Power (2008-09), and Commerce (2006-2009).

Before taking up public office, he has been a technocrat carrying out a number of administrative assignments. He was the Advisor to the Finance Minister (1996-98), Officer on Special Duty to the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission (1991-94), to the Prime Minister (June- September 1991) and in the Planning Commission (1986-89). He has also been an Additional Economic Advisor in the Ministry of Industry (1985-86) and a Consultant in the Advisory Board on Energy, Cabinet Secretariat (1983-85).

After graduating with a B.Tech degree in Mechanical Engineering from IIT-Mumbai in 1975, Jairam Ramesh did his M.S. in Public Policy from Carnegie-Melon University (1977) and attended a Graduate Programme in Technology Policy from MIT (1977-78).

He has written regular columns in The Telegraph, The Times of India, Business Standard and India Today and has also been part of TV shows on business and current affairs in Doordarshan. He has also written for The Hindu.

Some of his published works include Indo-US Relations (2000), Globalising India (2003) and Making Sense of Chindia (2005), and Green Signals: Ecology, Growth and Democracy in India (2015). To the Brink and Back: India's 1991 Story (2015) and Old History, New Geography: Bifurcating Andhra Pradesh (2016), Indira Gandhi: A Life in Nature (2017), and Intertwined Lives: P.N. Haksar and Indira Gandhi (2018). Besides, he has a few forthcoming publications, notable among them being Ecology, Democracy and Growth, India’s Maoist Challenge and A New Deal for Land Acquisition.

His major achievements include the design and implementation of special development strategies for nine Maoist-affected States in India.He played a key role in the design of legislation such as the Right to Information Act (2005), the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2006, the Forest Rights Act, 2006, the National Food Security Act, 2013 and the Land Acquisition Act, 2013. He also played a crucial role in placing environmental, sustainable development and forest conservation issues on the national agenda. Internationally, he played a key leadership role in the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (2009-10) and climate change summits in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun (2010), which was acknowledged by world leaders such as U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.