Born and brought up in the Sisautiya Village in the Sarlahi district of Southern Nepal, Ratan came to the United States of America in 1991 to attend a Master’s program at the University of Oklahoma (OU), Norman. He graduated with a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from OU in 1994. Ratan is a registered professional engineer (P.E.) in the State of Texas. Currently, he lives is Houston, Texas, USA. He has businesses in the areas of construction and real estate development in the USA and Nepal. He is the founding President of ANTA and has served as the General Secretary and Advisor of NRNA-ICC.

Annapurna Deo has had a long history of social leadership, serving ANTA in various capacities such as Spokesperson (2014-2016) and Advisory Board Chair (2017-2019, 2020-2021). Mrs. Deo chaired the ANTA delegation of eight members presenting in October 2015 to a US Congressman on the human rights violations in Madhesh, Nepal. She is from Rajbiraj, Saptary, Nepal and by birth from Basantpur, Saharsa, Bihar, India. She was a teacher at St. Mary's and St. Xavier's High School before coming to North Carolina in 1981 to join her husband Narayan Deo who had come to Duke University for his graduate study through USAID. She has attained a Bachelor of Art Cum Laude and Master of Public Administration (MPA) from North Carolina Central University (NCCU), USA. Mrs. Deo is a retiree from Duke University Health System where she was the winner of 2009 Algernon Sydney Sullivan Award. Annapurna Deo lives in Cary, NC with her family and presently is a Public Policy Consultant and a Certified Superior Court Mediator.

Mukesh Singh is a community activist. He has been involved in several non-profit organizations including but not limited to, ANMA, NRN, ANTA and his own professional organization. As a below-the-knee amputee, his passion is to champion disability rights. To that end, he has worked on several projects both here in the United States and in his home country of Nepal.

Lalit Jha is from Janakpur Dham in Nepal. He is a proud graduate (1982 batch) of Shree Saraswati High School in Janakpur. He completed his I. Sc. degree from Science College in Patna and B. E. from VRCE (now VNIT) Nagpur, India. He came to the US in 1991 to pursue Master’s Degree in Civil Engineering. He currently works as a Senior Water Resources Engineer in a private consulting firm. He has been living in the Lincoln, Nebraska area for the last 26 years with his wife and children. He has been with ANTA from the very beginning and his association with the organization has brought him great honor for fulfilling his social responsibilities.

Naveen Dutta is one of the founding members of ANTA. He is an electrical engineer by profession and resides in Denver, Colorado. He has been involved with many diaspora organizations since 2000, and was the founding President of Rocky Mountain Friends of Nepal. He was also the President of the Association of Nepal in the Americas. He also sits on the board of various other organizations. Besides his professional life and volunteer activities, Naveen is an avid outdoorsman who likes to spend time out in the nature!!

Jay Mandal is originally from the Saptari District, a graduate of PB High School and Amrit Science College. He came to the USA in 2000 to work as an IT Engineer. He has done his BE and ME in Electronics & Automation Engineering. In addition to this, Jay has been involved in the initiation and formation of ANTA since 2003. He is one of the founding members and the founding vice president of ANTA. Currently he is a Real Estate and Mortgage Loan Advisor and running multiple businesses. He is also the State Treasurer of the California Association of Mortgage Professionals. Jay has worked with many non profit organizations like CNP, ANMA, ANA and NRNUSA. He loves traveling, playing soccer, coaching, and mentoring start-up companies. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area in California.

Pramod Kantha, Ph.D., is an associate professor of political science in the School of Public and International Affairs at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. His course offerings include Politics of Nationalism, Politics of Developing Nations, Theories of Comparative Politics, and U.S. Foreign Policy toward South Asia. Kantha has published on the politics of India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bhutan. His latest publication on Bhutan is “Bhutan Review 2020,” published in Transformational Index BTI: Governance in International Comparison by Verlag Bertelsmann Stiftung (Germany). His latest publications on Nepal include “Nepal, History” (published in South Asia 2020 in the series The Europa Regional Surveys of the World, Routledge, 2019), “Nepal and Bhutan in 2013 & 2014” (published in Asian Survey 54, 2014, and 53, 2013), and “Nepal’s Protracted Transition—Explaining the Political and Economic Impasse” (a book chapter in Political Economy of Conflict in South Asia, Matthew Webb and Albert Wijeweera, eds.). Kantha is currently working on a book, Nepal’s Recent Political Transition.