The Immersion Course Faculty

The Immersion course involves an orientation to sociology and anthropology followed by rigorous instructions on specific areas chosen mainly from, but not restricted to, the following subjects: history, law, development, ethnicity, media, gender, technology, health, philosophy, religion and politics. Each module is taught by an active practitioner or academic at the forefront of knowledge and research in her/his field.

Currently, four of the regular Baha faculty members are on sabbatical. We are pleased that three new scholars have joined us. They are:

Rajendra Pradhan, Chair, Social Science Baha (legal anthropology)

Rajendra Pradhan is an anthropologist who received his terminal degree from the Delhi School of Economics. He has conducted research on diverse topics such as water rights, Nepali legal history, and the Newar caste system.

Ram Bahadur Chhetri is currently Chair of the Central Department of Sociology/ Anthropology at the Kirtipur Campus of Tribhuvan University.

For his doctoral work at the University of Hawaii, USA, he did his research on the adaptive strategies used by Tibetan refugees settling in Pokhara. His research interests include community-based management of natural resources, and the communities and populations in the Himalayan region, specifically Tibetan and other groups around the Mustang region.

He is currently studying the effects of the changes brought by development on Nepali population and culture and on minority groups in particular. For this study, he has been focusing on the effects of development and social change on the livelihood options among minority caste and ethnic groups like the Kumal, Pode, Kami and Damai around the Begnas lake area of Pokhara.

Sagar Prasai is a development planner and has been associated with development as an academic as well as a practitioner.  He has a doctoral degree in regional planning from the University of Illinois and a masters degree in urban and regional planning from the University of Hawaii.  He has been a consultant to various national and international development agencies including the National Planning Commission, UNDP, DfID and the World Bank. He is currently with the Asia Foundation.

The brief resumes of the rest of the faculty (in alphabetical order) are as follows:

Ajaya Mani Dixit (on sabbatical) is a Water Resource Engineer. A former Member of HMG's Water and Energy Commission, he is currently serving as the chairman of NEWAH, a national-level technical NGO that aims at empowering communities to build and manage their own drinking water projects. He was a faculty member of the Department of Civil Engineering at the Institute of Engineering, Tribhuvan University, Pulchowk from 1979 to 1989. He has provided extensive research and consultancy services in the fields of drinking water supply, irrigation and hydropower development to institutions such as the Ford Foundation, IDRC, various agencies under the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank as well as numerous other bilateral donors. A founding member of Nepal Water Conservation Foundation, he edits Water Nepal, a biannual journal that focuses on various facets of water resource development.

Dilli Ram Dahal holds a PhD. in Anthropology from the University of Hawaii, Manoa, Honolulu. He is currently Professor at the Research Center for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS), Tribhuvan University. He has co-edited several books including Nepalka Pachadiyeka kehi Jat-jatiharuko Samajik-Arthik Adhyan (Socio-economic Studies of some of the Backward Communities of Nepal), Tamang Family Research Project: Summary Report on Ethnographic and Survey Research and Land and Migration in Far Western Nepal.

Dipak Gyawali, (on sabbatical) , a former Minister for Water Resources, is a Hydroelectric Power Engineer and Resource Economist by profession. He is also a Pragya (member) of the Royal Nepal Academy of Science and Technology, International Advisory Board of Battelle Pacific Northwest National Lab (USA), New York Academy of Sciences, International Research Committee of the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in Colombo, as well as past chairman of Duryog Nivaran, a South Asian initiative promoting an alternative perspective on disaster mitigation particularly in flood, drought and conflict related stresses. He served with the Ministry of Water Resources from 1979 from 1987, and as a Board Director of Nepal Electricity Authority from 1992 from 1993. He has recently completed a five-year term as chairman of the board of trustees of Swabalamban, a grassroots voluntary NGO dedicated to poverty alleviation in rural Nepal. He was a visiting scholar at the International Environment Academy at Geneva as well as the Queen Elizabeth House at Oxford.

Hari Sharma is currently Director of Social Science Baha. He is also Senior Advisor to the Nepal Trade Union Congress. He has served in the government and academia in various capacities. He studied in India, the U.S. and Nepal. He is the co-author of "Political Leadership in Nepal" and "Local Leadership in Nepal". He has also contributed chapters to various books.

Kunda Dixit did his masters in journalism from Columbia University, New York, and then worked for the BBC World Service as a news reporter at the United Nations Headquarters. He later served as the Regional Editor of the news agency Inter Press Service for the Asia-Pacific region. He returned to Nepal in 1996 to set up the regional office of Panos Institute South Asia in Kathmandu. Since then, he is co-publisher at Himalmedia and editor of the weekly English language newspaper, Nepali Times. He is also the author of the book -- Dateline Earth Journalism: As If The Planet Mattered.

Pratyoush Onta (on sabbatical) holds a PhD in History, and has written on Nepali nationalism, Gurkha history, institutions, area studies and media. He has co-edited or edited seven books, four of which deal with the media in Nepal.

Sudhindra Sharma is a sociologist. He specializes in natural resource management and the role of religion and values in the social organization for the use of resources. He was earlier affiliated as a research associate with institutions such as the APROSC and IDS. For the past several years, he has been researching the impact of Finnish aid in Nepal. He has also provided services on strengthening the institutional aspects of irrigation management to the Department of Irrigation, HMGN; worked as a Farmer Organization Development Adviser in the World Bank-funded Irrigation Line of Credit; and functioned as an Institutional Development Specialist in the Asian Development Bank-funded Second Irrigation Sector Project. He has undertaken several research projects on the sociology and anthropology of religion. His research papers and articles dealing with the society-religion interface have been published in various magazines and journals such as HIMAL, Kailash, Contributions to Nepalese Studies, and Water Nepal. He holds a Ph.D. degree in Sociology from the University of Tampere, Finland.

Seira Tamang (on sabbatical) has a PhD in international relations and her research interests lie in gender and the global political economy. She is currently associated with Martin Chautari, a discussion forum based in Kathmandu.

Shanta Dixit is a public health specialist-turned-educator who has been the director of Rato Bangala School (RBS) in Lalitpur since its establishment in 1992. Teacher-training is her passion and her latest involvement is in the Primary Teacher Training Program of RBS conducted in conjunction with Bank Street College of Education in New York, USA, and Kathmandu University in Dhulikhel, Nepal.