Ajailiu (“Ajai”) Niumai
Faculty, Department of Sociology
University of Hyderabad
Email: aniumai@yahoo.co.uk

Ajai is the very first CARTHA Fellow, and in this capacity, visited the United States in October 2006. She spent a week in Iowa City with CARTHA's founder and Council of Advisors based in Iowa City. She also made a presentation at the South Asia Studies conference in Madison, Wisconsin.

Since 2000, Ajai has been a faculty in the Department of Sociology, School of Social Science, Hyderabad Central University in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India. Her areas of specialization include: Empowerment of Women, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Development. She has been teaching courses in Sociology of Development, Social Stratification, Indian Society and Introduction to Society. Her elective course offerings on Sociology of Non-Governmental Organizations and Development have attracted students from New York, Ohio, Paris, Ulan Bator (Mongolia), Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Some of Ajai’s students are now program officers and researchers in non profit organizations such as CARE-India and Dhan Foundation.

Ajai has led projects funded by Partnership-In-Mission and Hyderabad Central University, and organized national workshops at the university, and presented papers at various national and international conferences. She is currently working on a project entitled “Liangmai (Kacha-Naga) in the 21st century,” April 2006 - April 2007, UPE Project under North East Studies, Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad. She is keen to do research on Indian diaspora philanthropy.

Prior to joining the university, Ajai worked in 1998 as a researcher at TV Today Network (India Today Group) and Doordarshan. She also worked in 1999 at Partnership-in-Mission in New Delhi.

Ajai received her Bachelors in Sociology (Honors) in 1995 at Miranda House, Delhi University. She received her M.Phil in Sociology in 1999 from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). In her ethnic community, Ajai is the first and only woman who has completed a Ph.D from JNU (2006).

Ajai was born at Tamei in Tamenglong district of Manipur, North East India. She belongs to the Liangmai Naga (Zeliangrong) ethnic community which has been recognized as the marginalized Scheduled Tribe by the Government of India. Her schooling was done from Tiny Tots’ Unique school and Manipur Public School at Imphal, Manipur.