Against the assumption that infrastructures remain invisible until they break down, Dr. Matthaus Rest will analyze a different set of invisible infrastructures: those that remain uncompleted. Drawing on examples of two long delayed interventions (the Arun-3 Hydropower Project and the Melamchi Water Supply Project), Dr. Rest will ask how experts – the employees of development banks, civil society organizations and civil engineering companies – translate global norms into the Nepalese context in order to facilitate or obstruct the production of these projects. The talk will also address how people affected by these invisible infrastructures cope with decades of delay, uncertainty and the utopian promise of Nepal as a “Hydropower Nation” when brownouts amount to up to sixteen hours daily. Against this backdrop and the apparent dawn of a new form of hydro-diplomacy initiated by the rise of Narendra Modi, Dr. Rest will argue for an understanding of technology – whether present or absent – as always-already political.