Prem Shankar Jha took an MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from Magdalen College, Oxford, UK in 1961. After working for five years for the United Nations Development Programme, in New York and Damascus, Syria, he returned to India to pursue a career in journalism. He has been Editor of the Economic Times, the Financial Express, and Delhi's main paper, The Hindustan Times. He was Economic Editor of the Times of India from 1981 to 1986. From 1987 till 1990 he was the India correspondent of The Economist.

In 1990 he became the Information Adviser to the Prime Minister of India, V. P Singh. Since 1991 he has been a columnist for"The Hindu", 'The Hindustan Times', 'Outlook'; The Deccan Herald, Dainik Bhaskar(Hindi), and Tehelka.

He is the author of several books. These include:

• India- A Political Economy of Stagnation -1980
• In the eye of the Cyclone- The crisis in Indian democracy 1993
• The Perilous Road to the Market - A Political Economy of Reform in Russia, India and China, 2002
• Kashmir 1947- The Origins of a Dispute - 2003.
• ''The Twilight of the Nation State-- Globalisation Chaos and war', (2006),
• Managed Chaos: The Fragility of the Chinese Miracle (2009)
• 'Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India dominate the West? (2010),
• Planet in Peril: Global Warming and the race to find a solution
  
  Mr Jha has been :
  
  
• Visiting Professor of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta -1973;
• Visitor (visiting Fellow) of Nuffield College Oxford, 1976-77;
• Visiting fellow of the Centre for International Studies, Harvard university 1995,
• Visiting Professor at the University of Virginia ( Government department) 1997 to 2000. Visiting Scholar at the Fairbank Center for China studies at Harvard university 2006-7. In 2007-8 he was the first holder of the Chair on India's economy, at Sciences-Po, in Paris.