He received the Rhodes scholarship in 1986 to do a BA in Modern History from Balliol College at Oxford, which he finished in 1988.

in Modern History from Nuffield College, Oxford University in 1993, the subject being Forest policy in the Central Provinces.

[9] He was appointed as Vice-Chancellor of Krea University in July 2021[4] and stepped down from this position in less than a year citing personal reasons.

[10][11] In 2000 he co-authored Towards Co-existence, and the following year a brief work, India's Wildlife History, An Introduction, Battles over Nature, a book he co-authored with Vasanth Saberwal analyses present-day conservation conflicts and finds their roots in India's colonial past and in the governance system that was adopted as an independent nation state.

The book Making Conservation Work (2007) co-edited with Ghazala Shahabhuddin looks at ways of securing India's biodiversity in the new century.