There has been during the last sixty years or so an unprecedented growth and diversification of the poverty 'industry'. It has involved practically every national government, market forces, political parties, social movements, national and international civil society institutions, except that the main constituency with the greatest stake in it has not been allowed to take command of the 'industry'. The paper presented at Middle Income Countries (MICs) Initiative consultation at Johannesburg, South Africa in August 2007, makes an attempt to examine various aspects of poverty as it is seen and understood in India. Based on an alternative concept and understanding of development, this overview comes out with some alternative policies that can make poverty history over a reasonable time horizon and in a manner that simultaneously guarantees livelihood adequacy and security within an egalitarian social framework.

Kamal Nayan Kabra, a former Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Public Aministration, New Delhi, works on the issues of development.

Is there a town in India where there are no beggars? Is there a place of worship in India where you do not find people asking for alms? In the Indian sub-continent, with its rich religious heritage, alms giving in various forms has been overtly and covertly nurtured.

Beggary is in fact a rights issue where survival and protection itself remain at stake. The basic need fulfillment, denial to dignity and respect, suspicion and stigma are the issues that need to be addressed.

The homeless of any city has the same human rights as any other citizen. These rights are recognised under the Constitution of India, Indian National Laws and various International Conventions such as Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), International Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW):  
Housing or Decent Shelter
Employment
Health
Education
Affordable Water and Sanitation Services.

The social scenario in the country has been changing fast due to rapid urbanisation and industrialisation. In this process, certain categories of population, due to their vulnerability, have failed to cope with these rapid changes.

Beggary has become a social problem intricately interwoven with the socio-cultural and economic milieu.

Oil crisis, water conflicts, declining food security – we hear one report after another about resource scarcity, while with growing populations and huge poverty, nations are demanding their right to development. In the age of globalization this right cannot be disputed, yet the planet is already exhibiting signs of acute environmental stress. The struggle over nature will partly shape the crises of the twenty-first century. Clashes over resources, both major and minor, are often the unseen factor behind chaos and violence. It is vital to start thinking about how the distributionof resources can be made more just.

This book, written by specialists from the internationally  renowned Wuppertal Institute, provides an account of what is involved in the resource conflicts of today and tomorrow. It puts forward perspectives for resource justice and outlines a global economic and environmental policy equally committed to nature and to humanity.

It is well known that successful socio-economic transformation in the developed and the developingcountries have hinged critically on public provisioning of education at different levels. This study focuses on assessing the magnitude and composition of public spending on education in India in general. In particular, it is concerned with questions relating to the extent of financial resources required for universalising elementary education in the country within a stipulated timeframe and with certain benchmarks for schooling facilities, resources provided by the Centre and the States for elementary education in the last decade, and the obstacles in stepping up public expenditure on elementary education in the educationally backward States. Focus is also on studying the formulation and execution of Sate education plans and to what extent these plans incorporate important local needs. Attention is also paid to issues of quality, institutional bottlenecks in the planning and delivery structures as well as the budgetary processes focusing on Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan.

This second edition of this highly-successful glossary provides an exhaustive and authoritative guide to over 200 technical terms used in contemporary scholarly research on poverty. It seeks to make researchers, students and policy makers aware of the multi-dimensional character of this social condition. The new edition includes a range of entries to keep pace with an expanding field of discourse, an expanded set of references and further perspectives from developing countries. A special effort has been made to incorporate non-Western approaches and concepts.

The current food economy is characterized by immense contradictions. Food mountains, bountiful supermarkets and rising levels of obesity stand in stark contrast to widespread hunger and malnutrition. Transnational companies dominate the market in food and benefit from subsidies, whilst farmers in developing countries remain impoverished. Food miles, mounting toxicity and the ‘ecological hoofprint’ of livestock mean that the global food economy rests on increasingly shaky environmental foundations.

This book looks at how such a system came about, and how it is being enforced by the WTO. Ultimately, Weis considers how we can find a way of building socially just, ecologically rational and humane food economies. Tony Weis is Assistant Professor of Geography, University of Western Ontario, Canada.

We live in and from nature, but the way we have evolved of doing this is about to destroy us. Capitalism and its by-products – imperialism, war, neoliberal globalization, racism, poverty, and the destruction of community – are all playing a part in the destruction of our ecosystem.

Only now are we beginning to realize the depth of the crisis and the kind of transformation which will have to occur to ensure our survival. This second, thoroughly updated, edition of The Enemy of Nature speaks to our new environmental awareness. Joel Kovel argues against claims that we can achieve a better environment through the current Western way of being.

Rarely has such a contentious and complex issue emerged in twenty-first century development as that of water. In this book, co-editors David Hemson, Kassim Kulindwa, Haakon Lein and Adolfo Mascarenhas use a global spread of case studies to illustrate that water is not simply an issue of physical scarcity, but rather a complex and politically driven issue with profound future implications, both in the developing world and outside it. The book argues that for the international community to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, governments must step in to protect the rights of the poor. Here, the links between poverty and access to clean water are explored with an eye to political reform that can end the exploitative policies of big business and help to shape a more equitable world for all.