Jairam Ramesh: News

Jairam Ramesh, born on April 9, 1954, in Chikmagalur, is a noted Indian economist and politician from Karnataka. He belongs to the Indian National Congress (INC) and is a member of the Rajya Sabha, representing Karnataka as of 2021. Ramesh studied engineering from IIT Bombay and pursued a master's in public policy from Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College, followed by a doctoral program from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). After returning to India in 1979, Ramesh assisted civil servant Lovraj Kumar in the Bureau of Industrial Costs and Prices. Among other crucial positions, he later assisted the government in different advisory capacities. In 1991, he was chosen by the then-Prime Minister Narasimha Rao to assist him, although he was later transferred to then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh's team as an Officer on Special Duty (OSD). Ramesh officially entered active politics in 1998 when he joined the INC. In 2004, he was elected as a member of the Rajya Sabha representing Andhra Pradesh's Adilabad (now in Telangana). He held several important portfolios under the UPA government until 2014, including Environment and Forests and Rural Development, among others.