Women in Development- Perspectives from Selected States of India in Set of 2 Volumes (An Old and Rare Set)

Women's development can be seen as a Joint venture of the triumvirate of people, non- governmental bodies and the government. Universities and other Educational Institutions are the nerve centres for knowledge acquisition and dissemination. They have been urged to contribute to the cause of women through programmes for awareness, creation and knowledge sharing on issues relating to development of women not only among the educated audience but also among the uneducated majority in the rural and urban communities applying appropriate strategies.

It is in this background that the Resource book Women in Development was conceived. It is a compendium of articles covering the historical, social, economic, cultural and political aspects of development of Women in each of the States of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Maharashtra, Orissa and Tamil Nadu. The writers of the articles are drawn from different Universities, Colleges and research institutes located within these six states.

The contents of this book are expected to serve as a base material for teaching, learning, research and extension on women's issues and development. It is envisaged that the educated change agents would benefit from the readings in the book and reach the uneducated audience in the communities where awareness has to be spread on gender equality and women's role in development.

It is hoped that, out of these contributions will emerge in the minds of the readers, a holistic analysis of the status of women in contemporary India and motivate them to social action.

Professor Philomena Royappa Reddy formerly the Vice-Chancellor of Sri Padmavati Mahila Visvavidyalayam, Tirupati (Andhra Pradesh) is an educationist with an experience of three decades In teaching and research at the tertiary level. She was educated at Madras University and at Cornell University, the U.S.A. She had professional training in Communication at East-West Center, Hawall.

With a background of Home Science, she has specialised in Nutrition and Food Science. She has supervised several candidates for research degrees, handled a number of research projects sponsored by various agencies and published research papers in national and international journals. She has edited course materials in Nutrition and Foods for Indira Gandhi National Open University. Her other areas of interest are Women's Studies, Population Studies and Non-Formal Education.

She has served in academic committees of 27 Universities and the University Grants Commission in various capacities. She is a life member of professional associations like the Nutrition Society of India and Home Science Association of India. She was a member of the National Committee for Women under the aegis of late Prime Minister Shri Rajiv Gandhi.

She is the recipient of Meritorius Teacher's Award of Andhra Pradesh in 1983 and the Mahila Shiromani Award 1993, of the Shiromani Institute, New Delhi. P.Sumangala, is currently an economist at the Gandhigram Rural University, Madural. She was educated at Annamalal and Madural Universities. She also specialised in Women Development Studies from Clark University, the U.S.A. Her other areas of contemporary interest and research are labour economics, agricultural economics, child labour, gender issues, demographic transition and fertility. She has authored/ edited books like Child Labour and Mothers' Fertility Behaviour in Tamil Nadu: Differential Development and Demographic Dilemma: Perspectives from China and India; and Society and Development in China and India. In addition she has published several articles. Her latest research is on demographic transition and development strategies in Tamil Nadu.

Women work the most, paradoxically they earn the least in life. Their special social responsibilities, subordinate status in society, family patriarchy, socio-economic back wardness, proneness for occupation in the unorganized sector with low productivity and marginalization in employ ment opportunities account for their poor/low earning capacity. Even from the tender age of five years a girl works as a foster-mother for her infant brother or sister, as a water carrier, fuel collector, cook, self-employed worker and as a wage earner to support her family economically. After marriage a woman performs several roles such as home. maker, mother, water carrier, fuel collector, fodder provider and wage earner. Gainful employment constitutes only a part of the aggregate work performed by a woman day in and day out. Women contribute immensely to the social economy. Women's productive work consists of both unpaid work and gainful employment. But no formula has yet been evolved to measure the aggregate value of women's work for inclusion in the estimates of National Income and Social Accounting in spite of raising the issue by experts over the last two decades in India. Hence, the data measuring the unpaid work and its contribution to the income generation are not available.

**Contents and Sample Pages**