Conference Year: 2013

In 2012, a three-member team consisting of Pitamber Sharma, Bal Gopal Baidya and Dwarika Nath Dhungel was commissioned by the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare to prepare a comprehensive strategic plan document of a Social Science Research Council (SSRC) in Nepal, which would serve as ‘an apex institution devoted to the promotion and …

Strategic Plan for the Proposed Social Science Research Council in Nepal Read More »

Intimate partner violence (IPV), a form of domestic or gender-based violence (GBV), includes acts of physical aggression, psychological abuse, forced intercourse, and other forms of sexual coercion, and various controlling behaviors. Although IPV is a widespread and deeply rooted problem, it receives limited public attention in Nepal mainly because domestic violence (DV) is seen here …

Determinants of Intimate Partner Violence against Women in Pokhara, Nepal Read More »

Poor nutrition is believed to be the underlying cause of 35-50% of all child deaths, and 20% of maternal deaths.  It is also a large contributor to ill-health in these groups.  Dhanusha district in Nepal suffers from particularly poor nutritional outcomes, contributing to high maternal and child mortality rates. 40.7% of reproductive age women have …

Understanding Nutritional Behaviour of Pregnant and Postpartum Women in Dhanusha District, Nepal Read More »

Progress towards the MDGs has been highly uneven. Inequalities in maternal and child health and health care are huge. To make things worse, effective interventions are known, but rarely reach those who need them most. Little is known about what works, and why, to reach lower socio-economic and otherwise vulnerable groups with health interventions. We …

Who Participates?: Examining Socio-demographic Differences in a Community Mobilisation Intervention to Improve Maternal and Newborn Survival in Dhanusha and Makwanpur Districts Read More »

For at least one thousand years, the Dolpo-pa, the people of Dolpo, an enclave of culturally Tibetan transhumant agro-pastoralists dwelling through the high Himalayas of Midwestern Nepal, have caravanned ware-laden yak over the high passes and through the barren valleys of their mountain homeland. Masters of the salt-for-grain circuit of trade between the Tibetan Plateau …

The Embodiments of Ice and Bone: Dualistic Ideologies, ‘Permanence Through Certainty’, and The Phenomenology of Being of Dolpo Read More »

One of the major challenges around state restructuring in Nepal is to address the aspirations of movements demanding so-called identity-based federal states. This paper provides one example to show how current claims about history and federal states are situating themselves in a shared understanding of territory and land. I will look into the current Limbuwan movement’s demand for an autonomous Limbuwan federal state, through an analysis of …

History and Political Movements: Kipat in Today’s Limbuwan Movement Read More »

This paper investigates the attitudes of Nepali parliamentarians toward democratic values during Nepal’s second democratic interregnum (1990-2002). Was the elite attitude favourable for the consolidation of democracy in Nepal? Elites play significant roles in democratization of a country. Investigations of elite attitude becomes important when democracy does not consolidate, and even more so when the …

Democracy in Trouble? Political Elite’s Attitude and Behaviour and Regime Instability in Nepal Read More »

This paper seeks to discuss death and bereavement arising from political violence in Nepal. Throughout the paper, an attempt is made to analyse death and bereavement in the context of a post-conflict situation with an emphasis on the people’s engagement with death and their coping mechanisms for grief and loss. In the post-conflict Nepali perspective, …

‘Grief Arising Out of Violent Death is Like Swallowing a Hot Chilli’: A Nepali Case Read More »

Paul Collier, a professor of political economy and a well known conflict scholar points to the vicious conflict traps, which entrap a country into a vicious trap, from which it becomes difficult to get out. Nepal’s current predicament, i.e., a protracted post-conflict transition, resonates with Collier’s argument that there is a high probability of post-conflict …

Paul Collier and Nepal’s Prospects for Coming Out of the Conflict Trap Read More »

This paper will analyse modern life in Kathmandu through French Marxist Henri Lefebvre’s interpretation of alienation and the festival. Lefebvre, in his critique of modern urban life, speaks about the alienation present in the lives of ordinary people. Lefebvre contends that modernism, which capitalism has ushered in, is inherently alienating because of the lack of …

The Newar Town and the Festival Read More »