 At Doon, he was a contributor to the school newspaper "The Doon School Weekly", and edited a publication called "History Times" along with Amitav Ghosh, later to become a noted writer.He graduated from St. Stephen's College, Delhi with a bachelor's degree in economics in 1977, and completed his master's in economics from the Delhi School of Economics.He then enrolled at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, where he did a PhD on the social history of forestry in Uttarakhand, focusing on the Chipko movement.