Dr. Nagesh Kumar, Director-General
M.A., M.Phil, Ph.D
Email: nkumar@ris.org.in

Dr Nagesh Kumar is Director-General of RIS. Dr Kumar obtained his PhD in Economics from the Delhi School of Economics and joined the faculty of RIS in 1985. During 1993-98, Dr Kumar served on the faculty of the United Nations University - Institute for New Technologies (UNU/INTECH), Maastricht, the Netherlands, and directed its research programme on Globalization, FDI and technology transfers in developing countries. He has also served as a consultant to the World Bank, ADB, UNDP, UNCTAD, UNIDO, UN-ESCAP, ILO, the Commonwealth Secretariat, the Commission on Intellectual Property Rights, among other organizations.

Dr Kumar serves on a number of government committees and expert groups and on the Governing Boards of the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), Geneva; and the South Asia Centre for Policy Studies (SACEPS), Dhaka. He is recipient of the Exim Bank of India’s first International Trade Research Award in 1989 and a GDN Medal for best research awarded by the World Bank and the Japanese Government in 2000.

He has written extensively on the developmental impact of FDI, industrial and technology development policies, the challenge of new technologies for development, on regional economic co-operation in Asia, and on WTO and development, among other themes. His recent books include: Globalization and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment (Oxford University Press, 2002), Protecting Foreign Investment: Implications of a WTO regime and Policy Options (Zed Press, London, 2003) (with Carlos Correa); Reforms, Labour Markets and Social Security in India (Oxford University Press, 2004) (co-editor with Ramgopal Agarwala and Michelle Riboud); and Towards an Asian Economic Community: Vision of a New Asia, (editor, Singapore: ISEAS, 2005). He is co-editor of South Asia Economic Journal (published by Sage) and writes a fortnightly column ‘Trading Ideas’ in the Financial Express (New Delhi).