Ramesh Jaura is a member of the Board of Directors of the IPS International Association. A journalist with an experience of about 45 years, most of which he has spent reporting on global communication and development affairs, Jaura is Chairman of the Global Cooperation Council that he co-founded in 1983 under the name North-South Forum with the objective of creating public awareness of the need for a genuine North-South dialogue.The Federal President of Germany awarded Jaura the Federal Cross on Ribbon in June 1996 for promoting international understanding.

Jaura was the first journalist from a developing region to be elected president of the prestigious Foreign Press Association (VAP) of Germany in 1981. He was re-elected in the following two years. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of VAP, he edited and published a collection of essays titled The Giant in Chains – Foreign Correspondents’ View of the Federal Republic of Germany that aroused great interest in the media and on the political scene.

Born 1942 in ‘British’ India, Jaura obtained a Master of Arts degree from the University of Delhi in 1964 and soon took to journalism. In November 1968 he travelled to Europe and reported until June 1969 from Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, the Soviet Union, Austria, Germany and France. One year later, he returned to Europe to report from West Berlin, Bonn, Budapest, Prague and Warsaw for several Indian and UAE weekly newspapers. He also served as Germany correspondent of All India Radio and was a frequent participant in TV talk shows on international relations. For IPS, Jaura reported on U.N. conferences from Brazil, Japan and the Netherlands. He has also served as communication consultant to IFAD (Rome) and to the Executive Secretary of the UNCCD in Bonn.