India’s growth story in various sectors—industry, services, mining, and power—particularly since the dawn of the new millennium, though impressive, has not been inclusive. Whereas urban areas have developed fast, the rural areas still lack the basic infrastructure of connectivity, marketing and adequate means of employment generation. Poverty remains a major issue with our huge population living in rural areas, particularly in BIMARU states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. In addition to low income, problems of violent conflicts, food insecurity, illiteracy, ill health, unemployment, gender inequality, unhygienic living, etc. are various aspects of rural society. It is therefore imperative to analyse the prevailing conditions and draw strategies for rural development to make the country’s growth broadbased. Agriculture is still the mainstay of rural economy. The sector provides livelihood to over sixty per cent of labour force. Besides, it contributes nearly twenty-two per cent to India’s Gross Domestic Product, accounts for eighteen per cent of our exports and supplies the bulk of wage goods and raw materials for several industries. It is necessary to address agrarian distress through effective policies which are able to deal with the problems of low productivity, overdependence on nature, inadequate credit and marketing facilities. The book contains articles from erudite scholars and experts in the field of rural development, who have deeply analysed the pertinent issues and made valuable suggestions thereon. It will prove very useful to the researchers and students of Economics, government executives concerned with the formulation and execution of policies for rural development, parliamentarians and legislators, and the common readers interested in rural development.

Table of Contents:
1. Wetlands: Efficient Systems for Waste Water Treatment—B. Anjan Kumar Prusty and P.A. Azeez 2. Participatory Economics, Decentralization and Rural Development—A. Abdul Rahman 3. Agrarian Distress & Farmers’ Suicides—Rakesh A. Joshi 4. Impact Assessment of Rural Poverty Alleviation Programmes from Rights Based Perspective—Case Study of a Chronically Poor and Deprived District in India—Kaushik Ranjan Bandyopadhyay and Anit Nath Mukherjee 5. Ensuring Socio-Economic Development of Rural India through Electrification—Debajit Palit 6. Ecological Modernization and the “Gene Revolution”: The Case Study of Bt Cotton in India—Ashok Kumbamu 7. Empowering Panchayats through the Employment Guarantee Scheme—T. Prabhakar Reddy 8. Farm Level Land and Water Productivity in Tank Irrigation: Some Methodological Issues—K. Sivasubramaniyan and R. Sakthivadivel 9. Rural Development Through Reclamation of Saline Lands—S.K. Gupta, T.V. Satyanarayana and P. Balakrishnan 10. Paradigm Shifting in Rural Development—Anjani Kumar Singh 11. Legal Protection of Geographical Indications: An Indian Perspective—Kasturi Das 12. Land Rights of Women and the Implication for Agricultural Productivity and Food Security—Roma 13. Strategies to Reduce the Impact of Salt on Crops (Rice, Cotton and Chilli) Production: A Case Study of the Tsunami-affected Area of India—Tchouaffe Tchiadje Norbert F. 14. An Economic Analytics of Edible Fruits Business in Rural Areas of Madhya Pradesh State of India—Manoj Kumar Singh Contributors