Meghnad Desaiwas born in 1940 in Baroda (now Vadodara), Gujarat. He completed his bachelor's and master's degree in Economics in 1958 and 1960, respectively, from University of Bombay (now Mumbai). He got his PhD from University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA, in 1964. He worked as an associate specialist in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California, Berkeley, from September 1963 to July 1965. He joined the Department of Economics at the London School of Economics in September 1965. He has worked as a lecturer (1965-77), senior lecturer (1977-80), reader (1980-83) and professor (1984-2003). Since 2003, he is professor emeritus at London School of Economics. He was awarded the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman in January 2004 and the Padma Bhushan in 2008. He is also a recipient of the Hind Rattan Award from the Indian Merchants' Chamber. He is an honorary fellow of the London School of Economics and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Meghnad Desai was elevated to a peerage in May 1991 and is now known as Lord Desai of St Clement Danes; he sat as a Labour Peer in the House of Lords until November 2020. Now he is a Crossbench (non-affiliated) Peer. He was a member of the mentor group set up to revive Nalanda University by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, in 2007, and was a member of the governing board of Nalanda University. He is the chairman of the Meghnad Desai Academy of Economics, Mumbai, since June 2015. He is the chairman of the advisory board of the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum. He divides his time between London, Delhi and Goa. He has written over 25 books, including Applied Econometrics, Marx's Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism, Rethinking Islamism: The Ideology of the New Terror, The Rediscovery of India and Nehru's Hero: Dilip Kumar in the Life of India.