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Born in April 1956 on the banks of the river Rhein I grew up in Bonn, the capital of former West Germany. In a boarding school in Guetersloh/Westphalia I managed to clear the “Abitur”, the German exam necessary for study in universities. In West-Berlin I joined the “Free University” to study Journalism, Social Anthropology, Indology and Theatre, which I concluded with a Master of Arts degree in 1985. During my studies I already felt attracted to travel far and wide and visited Morocco, Jamaica and Guatemala, made an overland journey to India and saw many countries within Europe. Since that time I have taken interest in the relationships between the affluent North and the developing South of this world and voluntarily engaged myself with the work of several non-governmental organisations.

During one of my trips to India I fell in love with a teacher of German language. Rajashree changed my life for the better. After our marriage in 1989 I settled down with her family in Pune, about 125 km southwest of Mumbai (Bombay). From here I publish reports and feature-stories for public radio stations, newspapers and magazines, mostly in German language. My passionate reporting about the people’s struggle against a huge dam project on the Narmada river earned me a ban on entering the country. During my one year in “exile” I found a job in the German Parliament in Bonn, working for the Social Democratic Party on a documentation and questionnaire to the German government about human rights in India. While I was banned by the powers in New Delhi the German Government conferred its “Journalist Prize for Development” on me in 1991 for a radio feature I had produced for the “Westdeutscher Rundfunk”, the largest public radio station in Germany. Ironically the subject of this radio programme was the anti-dam struggle in the Narmada Valley in India. The Reuters Foundation, London sponsored me to conduct a three-month research at Oxford University in spring 2005.

Rainer and Rajashree feel very much at home in Pune.

The 'General Anzeiger', Bonn on Rainer Hoerig

The Indian Express, Pune on Rainer Hoerig