Vice President | Acting President
Professor Biswajit Dhar is Acting president and Distinguished Professor, Council for Social Development, New Delhi. He was a Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and has served as the Director General of the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), a think-tank of Ministry of External Affairs.
Professor Dhar was instrumental in the establishment of the Centre for WTO Studies of the Government of India and was the Head of the Centre for several years. He had also served as a Senior Consultant in the Planning Commission.
Professor Dhar has served as a member of the Indian delegation in multilateral treaty negotiations, including the World Trade Organization, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Convention on Biological Diversity. He has been nominated in expert groups for several inter-governmental organizations.
Professor Dhar has been interacting closely several inter-governmental organisations. He has been a consultant to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization, and the South Centre, among others. He has presented research papers in several international and national conferences and has publications in reputed national and international journals. He is a regular columnist in several national dailies.
Professor Dhar has served on the Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of India and was a Member of the Board of Trade, Government of India. He serves as an Adviser to the Asia-Pacific Research and Training Network on Trade of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and is on the Board of the Inter-University Centre for IPR Studies of the Government of Kerala.