Two members of the Brown faculty delivered keynote addresses at the Annual Kathmandu Conference on Nepal and the Himalaya, held in Nepal. Glenn Loury, professor of economics, and Hilary Silver, professor of sociology, were among four keynote speakers at the conference titled “Inequality and Affirmative Action: Situating Nepal in Global Debates,” July 18-22, 2012. Scholars and political experts from Nepal, India, the United Kingdom and the United States attended. Debipriya Chatterjee, who earned her Ph.D. at Brown, presented a paper in one of the conference sessions. The goal of the conference was to understand and inform the debate on affirmative action by generating theoretical and empirical frameworks of analysis under five themes: 1) the incongruity between and complements of democratic ideals and affirmative action to address inequalities; 2) the historical and contemporary processes leading to exclusion and marginalization; 3) the debate on eligibility for and extent of affirmative action; 4) an understanding of various country experiences of design and delivery of affirmative action measures; and 5) reconciling the seemingly controversial and incontrovertible need for affirmative action in Nepal.