Om Gurung has a PhD in anthropology from Cornell University. He is a Professor of Anthropology and Head of the Central Department of Sociology/Anthropology (CDSA, TU). He has served as Visiting Professor at Cornell University; University of Wisconsin-Madison; Harvard University, Boston; and SOAS, London. Currently, he is the Coordinator of Social Inclusion Research Fund (SIRF)-funded ‘Social Inclusion Atlas and Ethnographic Profile’. Prof. Gurung has written extensively on issues of indigeneity and inclusion. He is co-editor of Ethnicity and Federalisation in Nepal (2012) and co-authored Development of Nationalities: A Strategy Paper (2004). His recent works include ‘Indigenous Peoples and Peace-building Process in Nepal’ (forthcoming in Contribution to Nepalese Studies); ‘Social Inclusion: Policies and Practices in Nepal’ [inOccasional Papers in Sociology and Anthropology (2009)]; and ‘Political Conflict and Indigenous Peoples in Nepal’…

Zoya Hasan is a Professor of Political Science and presently Dean of the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). She has served as Chairperson(s) of the Centre for Political Studies, the Centre for the Study of Discrimination and Exclusion of the School of Social Sciences, the Centre for Media Studies, and was the founding Director of the Centre for Women's Studies (JNU). She has been a Visiting Professor to the Universities of Zurich, Edinburgh, and Maison des Sciences de L'Homme, Paris, and held fellowships at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex; Rockefeller Centre, Bellagio; and Centre for Modern Oriental Studies, Berlin. She was formerly a Member of the National Commission for Minorities. She is presently a Member of the National Integration Council and of the…

Meena Acharya is a well-known economist, feminist scholar, researcher and prolific writer. She has the experience of working with various government and non-government positions and is currently the General Secretary of Tanka Prasad Acharya Memorial Foundation. She did her BA honors in Economics from India, MSc in Economic Cybernectics from the Soviet Union and PhD in Development Economics from USA. Her academic contributions to highlighting women’s position and status in Nepali society have been unique and unparalleled. Some of her recent works include Labor Market Development and Poverty: with focus on opportunities for women in Nepal (2000), Gender Equality and Empowerment of Women (1997) with Pushpa Acharya, and The Statistical Profile of Nepalese Women, An Update in the Policy Context (1994). She has also written several newspaper articles and is published in numerous journals. …

Kåre Vollan is Director and owner of the company Quality AS. He has been working on elections in 30 countries and territories including Nepal, Zimbabwe, Kenya, Iraq, Palestine, Sudan, Egypt, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has been advising the Election Commission and politicians in Nepal, particularly on the group representation system, since 2006. In the period between 1996 and 2009, he headed twelve OSCE/ODIHR and NORDEM international election observation missions or teams. From 2003, he has issued opinions on election laws for the Council of Europe Venice Commission. Vollan, who is an applied mathematician by profession, has published a number of articles and reports on electoral and decision making issues, including on, electronic voting.

Anjoo Sharan Upadhyaya is the India Chair of the Central Department of Political Science at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu. She is on deputation from Banaras Hindu University, where she is a Professor of Political Science. Prof Upadhyaya holds a PhD from Banaras Hindu University and a Master’s from Allahabad University. She has done post-doctoral research at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington DC; and The London School of Economics. She has published extensively both nationally and internationally on issues of self-determination, ethnicity, conflict, federalism, gender, and development. She has travelled and lectured extensively in the US, Canada, Europe, and Australia.

Anand Teltumbde is an activist, writer, and public intellectual engaged with the issues of class, caste, communalism, and political economy impacting masses of people. He has written eighteen books and numerous papers/articles which are widely translated in most Indian languages and published in all leading newspapers and journals. Among his recent books are The Persistence of Caste: India's Hidden Apartheid and the Khairlanji Murders (2011), Khairlanji: A Strange and Bitter Crop (2008), and Anti-Imperialism and Annihilation of Castes (2005). His thought-provoking column ‘Margin Speak’ in Economic and Political Weekly has been creating ripples in intellectual circles. He is currently a Professor of Management at IIT, Kharagpur.

Sara Shneiderman is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology and South Asian Studies at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA. She is a socio-cultural anthropologist whose research addresses the relationships between political discourse, ritual practice, cultural performance and cross-border migration in producing contemporary ethnic identities in the Himalayan regions of Nepal, India and China (especially the Tibetan Autonomous Region). She is currently completing two book projects based on her ethnographic research with the Thangmi community, and has published several articles on the themes of Nepal’s Maoist movement and political consciousness; ethnic classification and affirmative action; ritual and religious practice; and gender, agency and identity. She is also a member of the British Academy partnership out of which this conference has grown.

Alpa Shah is Senior Lecturer in Anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London. She is the author of In the Shadows of the State: Indigenous Politics, Environmentalism and Insurgency in Jharkhand, India (2010). She is the editor of Windows into a Revolution: Ethnographies of Maoism in India and Nepal (2012) with Judith Pettigrew. Drawing on more than a decade of ethnographic field research in central and eastern India, she has also written numerous articles on corruption, development, the state, labour migration, the Maoist movement and indigenous rights. She has also made documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and the World Service on her research. She is the Lead Investigator of the British Academy UK-South Asia Partnership Project on 'Inequality and Affirmative Action in South Asia: Current Experiences and Future Agendas in India…

N R Madhava Menon, MA, LLM, PhD, has completed five decades teaching law and is presently International Bar Association Chair of Continuing Legal Education at the National Law School, Bangalore and Chairman of Menon Institute of Legal Advocacy Training, Trivandrum. He was the founding Vice-Chancellor of two of the leading law schools in India and founding Director of National Judicial Academy. He was also the Chairman of a Committee set up by Government of India to prepare the legal framework for an Equal Opportunity Commission.

Mara Malagodi is a Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS, where she completed her BA in Nepali & Politics, MA in South Asian Area Studies and PhD with the thesis 'Constitutional Nationalism and Legal Exclusion in Nepal' (1990-2007), now forthcoming in the Law Series of OUP India. She is a student member of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, which is supporting her training as a Barrister through the Blackstone Entry Exhibition and Quatercentenary Scholarship. She has just been awarded a three-year British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship, which she will be taking up at the LSE Law Department from October 2012.