Berkley Center

Jairam Ramesh is a member of India’s parliament and a senior political leader of the Indian National Congress Party. Ramesh was chief negotiator for India at the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference held in Copenhagen, Denmark. He has been a leading figure in international climate diplomacy for years and is currently a Fisher Family Fellow with the Future of Diplomacy Project at Harvard University. Ramesh was the Union Cabinet Minister for Rural Development under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh from 2011 to 2014. He held numerous high-level government posts from 2006 to 2014, including the Union Minister of State for Commerce and Power from 2008 to 2009. In the 1980s he served as economic advisor to the Finance Minister. Ramesh studied at the Indian Institute of Technology (Bombay), Carnegie Mellon University, and Massachusetts Institute of Technology.