Despite more than a decade of intensive urbanization, Nepal remains heavily dependent on agriculture for domestic food security, rural livelihoods, and for the generation of employment opportunities in aligned service industries. At the same time, agricultural productivity remains, by many metrics, the lowest in the South Asia region. Development of the agri-food sector has benefited from a sustained period of relative political stability following the resolution of the Maoist insurgency in 2007. Nevertheless, the recent devolution of powers to the newly formed provinces following the adoption of the Constitution of 2015 has created a host of new coordination and administrative challenges. Furthermore, sustainable agricultural development in Nepal faces long-standing structural, technical and institutional barriers to change that are compound by factors such as intensifying climate variability, weak value chains, extreme levels of out-migration, and the lingering impacts of natural disasters such as the severe earthquakes that struck the country in 2015. In this retrospective presentation, I discuss some of the success and failures that have marked agricultural research and development investments over the last decade and offer insights into how new programming can be more effectively prioritized, targeted, and implement across the diverse agricultural landscapes of Nepal.

Andrew McDonald is Associate Professor in the Soil and Crop Sciences Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science at Cornell University, with a joint appointment in the Department of Global Development. He is a cropping systems ecologist who addresses global challenges to agricultural sustainability and food security through process-based agronomy, integrated systems analysis, development of decision frameworks, and by fostering innovation alliances to support sustainable rural development. Much of McDonald's current research program is anchored in South Asia where he previously led CIMMYT’s sustainable intensification program, including the eco-regional Cereal Systems Initiative for South Asia. At Cornell, McDonald is also a faculty fellow at the Tata-Cornell Institute as well as the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.

The Biden administration has promised to undo the damage to immigration caused by the Trump administration. And the new administration has many competing priorities, including the coronavirus pandemic, the economy, and climate change. In this first event in our Reimagining Citizenship series, what can the Biden administration realistically achieve to fix our broken immigration system and promote pathways to citizenship? What will it tackle first, and why? Cornell Law School professor Steve Yale-Loehr will moderate a panel discussion with three leading immigration experts.

Steve Yale-Loehr, Professor of Immigration Law Practice at Cornell Law School and Co-Director, Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate ClinicJorge Lima, Vice President of Immigration at Stand TogetherDoris Meissner, Senior Fellow and Director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy InstituteKerri Talbot, Director of Federal Advocacy at Immigration Hub

This talk is part of Reimagining Citizenship, a speaker series by Cornell Migrations.

Ithaca Premiere>2019 > France/Germany/Switzerland > Directed by Thomas Balms
In Happiness (2014), filmmaker Balms chronicled 8-year-old Peyangki's initiation into a monastery and the arrival of electricity to his remote Bhutan village. In his new film, ten years have passed, and the filmmaker finds the teenage monk tied to his mobile phone, pursuing a romance over WeChat with a bar singer in Bhutan's capital. "...a fascinating tale of romantic melancholy played out against the peaceful, meditative backdrop of the Himalayas." (LA Times) In Dzongkha. Subtitled. More at participant.com/film/sing-me-song
1 hr 40 min

We will start taking reservations one week in advance of a film's first play date.
Reservations can be made here:
https://cinema.cornell.edu/virtual-cinema-order-form

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture Series

Anthony Irwin, Society for the Humanities Postdoctoral Fellow, Cornell University

This talk focuses on the production, ritual use, and recent mass proliferation of magical swords in northern Thailand. Considered to be some of the most powerful Buddhist objects in the northern Thai ritual repertoire, magical swords constitute a category of objects that are connected to state power, ritual efficacy, divine might, and the ability to change the course of personal spiritual progression through numerous rounds of rebirth. By presenting a number of historical, ethnographic, textual, and material examples of magical swords, this talk presents how northern Thai Buddhists use swords to demarcate Buddhist space, protect their homes from malevolent forces, and liberate themselves from the unruly outcomes of desire and attachment.

Ithaca Premiere>2020 > Spain > Directed by Nuria Gimenez
Using text from a woman's diary to accompany silent images of gorgeous home movie footage shot by her wealthy industrialist husband while traveling the world with him from the 1940s into the 1960s, this travelogue morphs into melodrama in a Òcinematic sleight of handÓ (New York Film Festival), winner of the Found Footage Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam. In Spanish. Subtitled. More at bretzelandtequila.com/en/my-mexican-bretzel-eng/
1 hr 14 min

We will start taking reservations one week in advance of a film's first play date.
Reservations can be made here:
https://cinema.cornell.edu/virtual-cinema-order-form

Part of the Ronald and Janette Gatty Lecture series

Ian Baird, Professor of Geography and Director of the Center for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), University of Wisconsin-Madison

For many Cambodians, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea (PRK) period of the 1980s is seen as a time of intense civil war, international isolation, and Vietnamese occupation: a dark period. In this presentation, which is based on my new book, Rise of the Brao: Ethnic Minorities in Northeastern Cambodia during Vietnamese Occupation, I explain the circumstances that led many ethnic Brao Amba people to join the Khmer Rouge in the 1960s. I also outline the events that resulted in most of the Brao in Taveng District, Ratanakiri Province—as well as some other ethnic minorities—turning against the Khmer Rouge, and fleeing to become political refugees in the Central Highlands of Vietnam and southern Laos in 1975. I then briefly explain the deterioration of relations between the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam, and how the refugees from Cambodia were organized into a fighting force designed to assist and especially legitimize the Vietnamese in removing the Khmer Rouge from power in 1979. For the Brao, the 1980s represented a kind of “golden age”, as their loyalty to Vietnam resulted in them being appointed to the highest positions in the government and military in northeastern Cambodia. Finally, I consider how Brao people evaluate the PRK period compared with present-day circumstances. Until recently, most modern histories related to Cambodia have been centered in the capital city of Phnom Penh. This research demonstrates the need to decenter Cambodian history and focus on what I call “marginal histories”, histories that are not marginal due to being unimportant, but rather because they are not centrally focused.