Child abuse involves several aspects, such as, sexual exploitation, domestic violence, abuse of domestic aids, trafficking for prostitution, corporal punishment at school and others. Child abuse also includes physical, mental, social, and psychological and neglect. However, the most widely accepted definitions of child abuse given David Gil states that "child abuse is the international, non-accidental use of physical force, or intentional, non-accidental acts of omission on the part of a parent or other caretaker interacting with a child in his care aimed at hurting, injuring or destroying that child". There are several forms of child abuse viz., Neglect, Physical, Mental, Verbal, Emotional, Sexual Abuse, Rape, Incest, Commercial Sexual Exploitation (CSE), Pornography, Sex tourism, Net crimes, Child Marriage, Child Labour, Female Infanticide, Female Genital Mutilation etc. The present book discusses all these issues.

Despite reservation for women, effective participation in Panchayati Raj Institutions has failed due to misuse and manipulation by Local power brokers. Ignorance of women about their rights and procedures and about their potential and responsibilities has kept them far behind men in the local bodies. It is very much doubtful that mere increase in number of reserved seats for women in local bodies is likely to increase participation of women. Unless structural changes are brought about and a sincere effort is made to educate women and the power structures existing in rural areas are neutralised, nothing much can be achieved. All these issues have been discussed in this book and hence, it is hoed that it will be of much use of all those reading with PRI in our country.

We live in a world with electrifying scientific wonders and achievements that excite the mind. However, climatic changes occurred in both social work education during the late 1960s and early 1970s. For the first time since 1839 undergraduates social work education was officially recognised by the profession, standards were set, accreditation of undergraduate programmes by the Council on Social Work Education was instituted. And at present, there is a growing demand on the part of the public, taxpayers, funding organizations, legislators-to know what social workers do. Evaluation is the process of attaching a value to the work done. It is a method of determining outcomes and whether these are consistent with the support the agency receives. Social work practices are sometimes suspect, sometimes viewed with ambivalence by the public; they need to be continually validated and proven. Whereas social case work is a person to person process of helping individuals to make adjustments to each other and to their social environments. It is a well-organised method of helping people to help themselves, aimed at the improvement, restoration, and enhancement of social functioning. This is not a book of rules or an easy do-it-yourself manual. The student in social work can not be supplied with a set of rules to be invariably followed. What are offered are a set of principles, processes in which the principles can be applied, and an opportunity to begin developing skill and judgement in their application. In this sense both this book and social work are in the best of the liberal arts tradition-a tradition which requires the disciplined exercise of judgement.

Social work, once ought of as a basket-on-the-arm assistance to the poor, it now is a discipline, scientific in method and artful in manner, that takes remedial action on problems in several areas of society. It ministers to families in economic or emotional difficulty; It helps communities to bring their welfare and related services into good balance. It works in medical, group, and school situation. It seeks to correct the causes underlying delinquency and adult criminality. The book provides an introduction to social work. Organised in Twenty seven chapters, like-what is social work? History of social work; principles; as a discipline; meaning and concepts; social work research; areas for social work interventions; social worker; horizon of developmental social work; changing fashions in social work; and managing social workers etc., this book will prove a vade mecum to all concerned.