Rural Development and Social Change

Contents: Preface. 1. Poverty lines versus the poor method versus meaning. 2. Of Calories and things. 3. Poverty estimates in India is a myth. 4. Fractions versus whole numbers on headcount comparisons of poverty across variable populations. 5. Development and diffusion of Bt Cotton technology in India. 6. Health Insurance in rural India. 7. Rural non-farm employment scenario. 8. Political and administrative realities of employment Guarantee Scheme. 9. Panchayati Raj leadership : emerging dimensions. Bibliography. Index.

"India lives in her villages. Villages are the backbone of our economy because majority of our population depend upon agriculture as the prime employment source. For that purpose alone out policy makers and planners gave much importance to agriculture and other allied sectors. In India one-third of our population goes to the bed without taking supper because of poverty and social inequalities. To reduce its regional imbalances government allocated more funds in our budget every year but the government was not able to achieve its desired objectives because of many loopholes and bottlenecks.

This book has made an attempt to analyse the causes and effects of inequalities of income distribution among the different sectors and also throw light a clear picture of our economy in the post-liberalisation era. In general this book tries to give a clear cut picture of rural economy." (jacket)