Ash Narain Roy is a Ph.D in International Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. He spent more than four years at El Colegio de Mexico, Mexico City, as Visiting Scholar in the early 1980s. He worked with Hindustan Times as Assistant Editor from 1990 to 2001.
In 1997 Roy was sent by the UN to Cairo and Amman as member of the Fact Finding News Mission on the question of Palestine.
He has published several papers in national and international journals and presented dozens of papers in international seminars and conferences on democracy, local government, federalism, globalization and Indian foreign policy. In March 2005, Roy led a 34-member Indian local government delegation to Pakistan as part of Track Two diplomacy. Roy has also been associated with the Iraqi, East African, Yemeni and Nepali federalism projects of the Forum of Federations, Canada. He was a member of the international team to observe the Sri Lankan parliamentary elections in August 2015.
Roy is member, Indian National Man and Biosphere (MAB) Committee, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India, member, Advisory Board, Istanbul Gelisim University Journal of Social Science, member, Advisory Committee, Faculty of International and Political Studies, University of Lodz, Poland and Member, Committee of Advisers, Centre for Studies and Services on Contemporary India and Southern Asia, Universidad Externado de Colombia.
He is author of several books including The Third World in the Age of Globalization, Globalisation or Gobble-isation: The Arab Experience, Local Governance: A Global Perspective and Development, Decentralization and Democracy.
He is currently Director, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.