Bhandari was one of the youngest business school directors in India when he took over this responsibility, and during his tenure IRMA's research impacted policy at the national level in a variety of fields related to rural development.
[3] After completing his education, Bhandari became a faculty member at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, in the USA.
He was also a founding faculty member of the Young India Fellowship Program (associated with Ashoka University) in New Delhi.
Bhandari's writings have been published in the Journal of Asian Studies, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, in edited volumes, and reference works such as the International Encyclopedia for the Social Sciences and the Encyclopedia of Modern Asia.
A year into his term as director of IRMA in 2008, Bhandari was included in Business Today magazine's list of India's Top Twenty-Five Young Executives under the age of 40.