Rural development is important for the nation's socio‐economic upliftment. It is the process of improving the economic conditions and upgradation of physical and social infrastructure in rural areas. In India, 73rd Constitutional Amendment Act, 1992, has recognised Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) as the third tier of governance and given them the constitutional mandate for bringing improvements in the lives of people living in rural settlements. Yet, the rural settlements are not getting developed as per the expectations of rural population. Rural development is either totally ignored or given less preference as compared to the urban development.Regional Planner is entrusted with the responsibility to prepare a plan integrating rural and urban settlements. For rural settlements, either a plan does not exist or it has been prepared without detailed sectoral, spatial and financial planning. For urban settlements, though master plans do exists yet they have not been made for all the towns. In the absence ofnationwide efforts to prepare regional plans for achieving the balanced regional development as per the constitutional mandate, there is an increase in region‐wide disparities between rural and urban settlement.Earlier studies have focused on comprehending different nuances of rural life by studying employment opportunities, provision of basic infrastructure, quality of life, disparity between urban and rural areas, etc. There is a lack of comprehensive study to systematically understand the relationship between rural and urban settlements, access and availability of amenities in rural areas and provide suggestions to bring improvement in the living conditions of rural habitat so as to make it a model village. The book fills this gap by imparting an understanding of the rurality in a highly urbanised district and suggesting ways to transform a village into a model village.With the help of extensive quantitative and qualitative data collected from varied tiers of governance, i.e. state, district, tahsil, block and village, the book highlights the problems existing in the rural settlements and analyses the potentials to make it an ideal settlement having provision of urban amenities.

India's cooperative dairying program is widely celebrated as an example of successful rural development, yet the meanings of this success have been understood mainly through the pronouncements of national and international development agencies. Within such official narratives, there has been relatively little engagement with the geographies of dairy development, both its place-specific productions through political contests, availabilities of labor, and distributions of agricultural resources, and the unevenness of its outcomes across rural India. This absence is even more surprising given that village-level cooperatives comprise the foundation of India's dairy development program, and the work of women within rural households is continuously invoked as an integral part of the dairy work. This book extends and enriches current understandings of cooperative dairying in India to show both its value to rural communities as well as the limitations of its participatory structures. Combining comparative and ethnographic approaches, explanations for the diverse outcomes of cooperative dairying are provided from the perspective of the people and places directly involved in the everyday reproductions of rural development. This book contributes to existing understandings of rural development and rural geographies in four significant ways. First, by following histories of development from their local origins to their national and international appearances, the global genealogies that are usually attached to development are rendered more complex. Second, by connecting cooperatives to place, the ways in which participation in development reflects local struggles for power and, hence, are structured through local inequalities, is revealed. Third, by linking dairying and agriculture, the continuing importance of resource distributions in shaping the outcomes of rural development is highlighted. Finally, the crucial role of household divisions of labor in the success of village dairy cooperatives is explicated through showing how struggles over the meanings of rural women's work become key to enabling household-level participation in dairying. This book will be of interest to scholars in a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary fields, including geography, sociology, anthropology, rural studies, development studies, gender studies, and regional studies of India.

From Rural Village to Global Village: Telecommunications for Development in the Information Age examines the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) on both the macro level--societal, socio-economic, and governmental--and sector level--education, health, agriculture, entrepreneurship--emphasizing rural and developing regions. Author Heather E. Hudson examines the potential impact of ICTs by reviewing the existing research and adding her own findings from extensive fieldwork in ICT planning and evaluation. The volume includes case studies demonstrating innovative applications of ICTs plus chapters on evaluation strategies and appropriate technologies. She also analyzes the policy issues that must be addressed to facilitate affordable ICT access in rural and developing regions. This discussion relates to the larger “digital divide” issue, and the impact that access to communication technology--or the lack of it--has on communities and societies. This comprehensive volume is a valuable resource for scholars, professionals, researchers, and students in telecommunications law and policy, media economics, international communication, and communication and development fields. It is also suitable for use as an advanced-level text in these areas.

Mobilizing for Development tackles the question of how countries achieve rural development and offers a new way of thinking about East Asia's political economy that challenges the developmental state paradigm. Through a comparison of Taiwan (1950s–1970s), South Korea (1950s–1970s), and China (1980s–2000s), Kristen E. Looney shows that different types of development outcomes—improvements in agricultural production, rural living standards, and the village environment—were realized to different degrees, at different times, and in different ways. She argues that rural modernization campaigns, defined as policies demanding high levels of mobilization to effect dramatic change, played a central role in the region and that divergent development outcomes can be attributed to the interplay between campaigns and institutions. The analysis departs from common portrayals of the developmental state as wholly technocratic and demonstrates that rural development was not just a byproduct of industrialization. Looney's research is based on several years of fieldwork in Asia and makes a unique contribution by systematically comparing China's development experience with other countries. Relevant to political science, economic history, rural sociology, and Asian Studies, the book enriches our understanding of state-led development and agrarian change.

This collection of essays written from 1947-1986 by Fei Hsiao-tung, China's most distinguished sociologist and anthropologist, presents a rich and representative sampling of the research that has characterized his long career. In 1936, Fei conducted field work in Kaixian'gong, a village in Jiangsu province in east China. This village became the subject of his now classic study Peasant Life in China, in which he argued that, because of China's huge population and the scarcity of cultivable land, household industries such as production of raw silk were vital to the peasants' economic survival. His conclusions, long rejected by China's policymakers, have recently been embraced by the government under the political leadership of Deng Xiaopeng. Returning to Kaixian'gong in 1957 and again in the 1980s, Fei examined the changes that had occurred since his initial research. Three essays that resulted from these follow-up studies are included in this collection, providing a rare summary and analysis of developments in the village between 1936 and 1986. Also included here are four articles based on Fei's 1983-84 research in other areas of Jiangsu province. His explorations of the contrast between the wealth of southern Jiangsu and the long-standing poverty of the northern half of the province address key issues of public policy in China today. Useful to students of rural sociology as well as of Chinese history, politics, economics, and anthropology, this collection will provide an overview not only of developments in the small towns of China but also of Fei's thought.

Policy-relevant and up-to-date, Rural Development deals systematically with all aspects of socioeconomic rural development, using India as a case study. The Second Edition includes an integrated treatment of the principles, policies and management of rural development; new research and statistical data; illustrations and examples from current situations; the latest measures of rural development; and a new methodology for project monitoring and evaluation.

Providing an account of the role of informal institutions in Chinese rural development, this book, based on a decade of fieldwork of village life in the Chinese countryside, puts forth a distinctive argument on a very important topic in Chinese economic and social affairs. Focusing in particular on three major informal institutions: village trust and Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs), guanxi community and Integrating Village with Company (IVWC) governance, it argues that informal institutions, traditions and customs are all critical factors for facilitating modernization and social and economic development, promoting the integration of trust, reciprocity, responsibility and obligation into economic and social exchange processes and considerably lowering risks and transactions costs. This detailed account is an invaluable resource for postgraduates and researching studying and working in this area. Winner of the 2008 Zhang Peigang Development Economics Award.