INDIA is one of the oldest civilizations in the world with a kaleidoscopic variety and rich cultural heritage. It has achieved multifaceted socio-economic progress during the last 59 years of its Independence. India has become self-sufficient in agricultural production, and is now the tenth industrialized country in the world and the sixth nation to have gone into outer space to conquer nature for the benefit of the people. It covers an area of 32,87,263 sq km, extending from the snow-covered Himalayan heights to the tropical rain forests of the south. As the seventh largest country in the world, India stands apart from the rest of Asia, marked off as it is by mountains and the sea, which give the country a distinct geographical entity. Bounded by the Great Himalayas in the north, it stretches southwards and at the Tropic of Cancer, tapers off into the Indian Ocean between the Bay of Bengal on the east and the Arabian Sea on the west.

The social problems of contemporary India are the result of a complex nexus between the factors of exclusion and inclusion rooted in history, values, and cultural ethos. Many of these problems based on the policy of segregation have not been addressed by the development strategy launched since Independence. Recent policies of globalization have further undermined the role of larger societal norms as well as the state apparatus that could counter exclusionary forces. The agenda of social development has remained unfinished, keeping social tensions simmering. Today, however, in the policy debate, orthodox economic liberalism is giving way to concerns regarding social consequences of globalization, as it affects the poorest and the marginalized sections of the population. Thus, a number of highly important and far-reaching social policy measures have been brought on to the development agenda, in the form of the Right to Information Act, Rural Employment Guarantee Act, the Rural Health Mission among others. This unique section argues the need to harness the energy of the nation to ensure their effective implementation through an overview of trends and patterns of development along with policies and programmes. It identifies key concerns and proposes measures of possible intervention. The areas and sectors discussed include: Poverty, unemployment, and the role and importance of public intervention. Challenges in the health sector, achievements and failure in education, Challenges in urban governance, The role and location of women in social development, communal relations as an important factor in attaining social integration, Inequality and population mobility, decentralization and empowering local government, social security. Besides these, the report has an analytical section on the status of the child in India with essays on development, the elimination of child labour, and the country's social obligations to the Indian child. As a final measure of how the various regions of India have fared on the scale of social development, the report provides a ranking of the states in terms of social development with an aggregative index of their performance. With contribution from some of India's leading scholars and policy planners, the report will be useful to a wide audience of scholars and activists in development studies, economics and politics, in addition to policy planners, administrators, and researchers.

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