The contributors to this volume, illuminate the complex relationship - sometimes wary, sometimes accommodative, sometimes violent - between a modernizing, developmentalist state, and the people it professes to represent and benefit.This book covers subjects such as, state, development and local politics, state and ethnic activism, and state and Maoist insurgency. It also contains an important introductory paper on the transformation of the Nepalese State by David N.Gellner.