I am a sociologist with strong research interests in human -riverine relationships in the context of sustainability. I work on river-cities, migration, gender, and the borderlands. I am leading the research on River-Cities Nexus at the Institute for Human Development (IHD). Between 2000-2010, I worked on gender and development in South Asia. In 2004, I set up UNDP India’s Community of Practice on Gender, as part of the United Nations Knowledge Management Partnership Initiative in India. I coordinated the UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women) and UNODC ( United Nations Office of Drugs and Crimes) led South Asia Anti-Trafficking Think Tank (2008-2010) that saw high-level participation and commitment from all the SAARC ( South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) member national governments, regional UN entities and civil society organizations working on anti-human trafficking in South Asia. Through 2005-2010, I represented UNIFEM at the Inter-Agency Coordination Group against Trafficking in Persons (ICAT), a policy forum mandated by the UN General Assembly to improve coordination among UN agencies and other relevant international organizations globally to facilitate a comprehensive approach to prevent and combat trafficking in persons.I am a contributor to the International Framework for Action to Implement the Trafficking in Persons Protocol (UNODC, 2009). My doctoral research from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, is an ethnography of social practices, negotiations and bordered belonging of the new citizens of the former border enclaves known as the 'Chhit Mahals' along the Bangladesh India borderlands, who were granted citizenship, following the historic exchange of the enclaves between Bangladesh and India in 2015. My current research includes Investigation of Ecosociality of the Ganga Riverscapes: A study of the riverine sub- cultures, folk traditions and community practices in the Ganga Basin, Relationship of the Yamuna River and Delhi city, Labour migration and gender relations in the Sundarbans delta, and Gender and material changes in the borderlands of Meghalaya, in North-East India. My latest publications are the essay, ‘Feeling Unsettled in the Field: Emotions and the field researcher” in The Palgrave Handbook of Social Fieldwork, Edited by Nasir Uddin & Alak Paul, Palgrave Macmillan, 2023 and 'Political Economy of Migration in the India–Bangladesh Borderlands: Identity, Labour and Affect in the Former Chhit Mahals in Cooch Behar', The Indian Journal of Labour Economics (2024), pp.1-20.