This blog is a work in progress; if you stumble across it in these early days, please give me a little time to get it up and running. I will soon be adding some posts, other blogs I follow, and additional material.

I would like to use this blog to share my thoughts on a few things. I currently have a book manuscript under review at a press; the book is on how UN agencies view the rights-based approach to development in the Indian context, and how they implement that agenda. I am particularly interested in the political side of that process; how they pursue this agenda despite the fact that it is much more overly political than other activities they might be involved in. Its one thing to help a country immunize its children, or build irrigation projects; its quite another to tell them to respect the rights of indigenous peoples, or to set aside seats in political bodies for women. Those sorts of activities would seem to challenge national sovereignty in a way "traditional" development projects do not.

I also have a long-standing interest in how International Relations theory views the independence of UN agencies. They are, theoretically, accountable to member states, and supposed to follow the directives of those states; in fact, however, they show considerable independence and the ability to set their own agenda. They even sometimes use their own opinions to press members states on issues those members might prefer to ignore. How they do this sheds light on the ways in which traditional IR theory fails to understand these agencies. My project helps build towards a better understanding of this.

I also anticipate working on a project regarding the transgender community in Nepal, and the policy of UN agencies to promote transgender ("hijra") rights there.

More coming soon. Please feel free to reach out to me if you want to discuss any of these topics, or my blogging in general.