This is a book about understanding women’s empowerment and pathways as well as roadblocks to women’s economic empowerment in rural India, as understood through an evaluation-based research of a state-funded social sector programme located in the education department – Mahila Samakhya (MS) – in Bihar, one of the socially and educationally most underdeveloped Indian states. The book presents findings of the three-year research that adopted a mixed-methods approach and evaluated the impact of...

Sustainable development has emerged as an overarching concern globally. Given the challenges of climate change, national economies, especially in the developing world, face unsustainable levels and patterns of growth and development. This volume looks at how India’s sustainable development has progressed through institutional changes and public policy discourse. It studies the three pillars of sustainability – technology, governance, and finance. The authors examine whether institutions ha...

This book examines the state of the Open and Distance Learning (ODL)-based secondary education in India. ODL-based education has been a key resource for children in India who can neither cope with nor avail of regular schooling opportunities due to economic, health and disability, or other constraints.The volume uses large-scale empirical data collected from various Indian states and a sensitive theoretical framework to study the equity, efficiency, and effectiveness of the Nationa...