The Government of India has nominated Professor J S Rajput, former Director NCERT, as India’s representative to the Executive Board (EXB) of UNESCO.
Professor Rajput is a renowned educationist with an extensive experience in various fields including apex bodies of United Nations. Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister for Human Resource Development, actively supported various nations for India’s membership to the EXB, by meeting their Ministers during a UNESCO meeting from 30th Oct to 4th Nov 2017.
The Executive Board has 58 seats and a four-year term of office. It is one of the constitutional bodies of UNESCO and is elected by the General Conference. It supervises the work of the organization and sets the annual budget for it.
In practice, the executive board is the main organ responsible for all policies and programmes of UNESCO. The elections of Members of the EXB for the term 2017-21 took place on 8th November 2017, in which India won with 162 votes in Group IV during the 39th session of the General Conference which was held from 30th October to 14th November 2017.