He has served in the United Nations Development Programme, the World Bank and as the information advisor to the Prime Minister of India.
[1] Jha is the author of a dozen books including Kashmir 1947: Rival Versions of History and Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger: Can China and India Dominate the West?.
[4] In 1985–1987 he was also a member of the energy panel of the World Commission for Environment and Development, headed by Gro Harlem Brundtland.
[5] David Taylor in a scholarly review of Prem Shankar Jha's Kashmir, 1947: Rival Versions of History observes that the Indian journalist who was also an information adviser to the Indian Prime Minister tackles Alastair Lamb's positions about the Mountbatten-Indian Government collaboration over Kashmir.
Taylor states that while Jha does not totally rebut Lamb's positions he provides "plausible alternative readings" to some of the arguments he had raised.
[10] On 29 December 2021, Jha received the RedInk lifetime achievement award by the Mumbai Press Club "for his long and distinguished career of incisive and analytical writing".