The multifaceted approach of development planning has added effectively towards eradication of the traditional socio-historical roots of mass poverty and of chronic hunger from various angles. In countries still under the process of development like in India, planning in the past has been interwoven with the upliftment of regional economy, Planners tended to forget the social and environmental aspects, which go hand in hand with all kinds of planning. The consequent deterioration of ecosystem and environmental conditions has led to a total chaos in the whole structure of production and consumption. This is evidenced by droughts and starvation pervading the once affluent areas of African continent.

This encyclopaedic work is a veritable mine of information, which provides a seasoned analytical explanation of India's development agenda in pros and cons. Certainly, the present work will be of immense importance to all concerned.

Statistics is the science of collecting, analyzing, presenting, and interpreting data. Governmental needs for census data as well as information about a variety of economic activities provided much of the early impetus for the field of statistics. Currently the need to turn the large amounts of data available in many applied fields into useful information has stimulated both theoretical and practical developments in statistics. Data are the facts and figures that are collected, analysed, and summarized for presentation and interpretation. Data may be classified as either quantitative or qualitative. Quantitative data measure either how much or how many of something, and qualitative data provide labels, or names, for categories of like items. Sample survey methods are used to collect data from observational studies, and experimental design methods are used to collect data from experimental studies. The area of descriptive statistics is concerned primarily with methods of presenting and interpreting data using graphs, tables, and numerical summaries. Methods of probability were developed initially for the analysis of gambling games. Probability plays a key role in statistical inference; it is used to provide measures of the quality and precision of the inferences. Many of the methods of statistical inference are described in this work. This work encompasses encyclopaedic information Statistics, which will prove vade mecum to one and all.

This book examines the dynamics of Rural Indebtedness along with dimensions of Human Development in rural Assam vis-à-vis other states of India. It is largely based on a primary survey of a cross-section of the agricultural labourers and 'marginal-small-medium' farm households in Assam. The importance of the study lies in the fact that it tried to explore the ground realities behind the prevailing sentiment that in the era of globalisation and lower supportive role of the Government for poverty alleviation and inequalities reduction, the provision of institutional credit support to the 'asset-less and asset poor' may become scarce and obviously dearer. No. serious discourse/study on the subject of human poverty vis-à-vis rural indebtedness has so far been initiated by the academics of this region. This book aims at addressing these aspects of rural development. The present study is successful in unraveling rural indebtedness in Assam arising out of the local, socio-economic specificities of the state. This study has a number of policy implications, particularly in the context of the economic liberalization in India.

Small Scale Industry can play an important role in dispersal of national income and reducing unemployment, thereby improving the quality of life of the majority of the population of India. There are about 25 lakh SSI units in India employing millions of persons and it constitutes about 98% of the total number of industrial units available in the country. It is seen that the performance of industrial sector is unsatisfactory. Major challenge before this sector today is lack of professional management. There are about 15000 management consultants in India, mostly concentrated in the metros and other bigger and capital cities. However, taking into account poor performance of small scale industrial sector, it appears that either management consultants are not able to cope with the real management consultancy demand of this sector or their services are too costly or the quality of their services is poor and they are not able to solve the real management problems of the SSI or there is lack of awareness on the part of small units about the usefulness of the management consultants. Therefore, it is high time that the real problems are ascertained and remedial action suggested. This book identifies the real reasons underlying under-utilisation of management consultancy services by SSIs and offers practical suggestions. As such it is expected to be very useful too the small scale sector, management consultants, policy makers, financial/developmental institutions including banks and research/ academic/ management institutes of not only India but other developing countries having similar socio-economic profile.