Dear All I am glad to inform you that a four volume work on LIVELIHOOD AUGMENTATION IN RAINFED AREAS has been recently published and is available as open access.   The volumes are: * Strategies Based on Natural Resource Management. Removal of poverty and hunger is the first of the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted by the United Nations. About 400 million rural poor reside in about 200 poorest districts of the country that constitute rainfed areas. * Entrepreneurial Strategies for Augmenting Rural Livelihoods. With the Green Revolution areas showing signs of fatigue, and public investments in rainfed regions not yielding the desired results, Indian agriculture once again finds itself at the crossroads. The crisis of productivity in agriculture is linked to an impending crisis of food security, reminiscent of the PL-480 days, prior to the Green Revolution. * Catching the Virtual Bus : ICT for Augmenting Rural Livelihoods. guidelines of April 2008, as guiding principles for implementing the programme. The new guidelines give due recognition to the need for improving rural livelihoods through participatory watershed development, with the focus on integrated farming systems for enhancing income, productivity and livelihood security in a sustainable manner. * Creating Social Capital for Livelihood Interventions If one looks at the overall agricultural pattern across the country, almost 85 million ha, that is, about 60% of the 142 million ha of cultivable land is under rainfed conditions. These make a significant contribution to the production of pulses, oil seeds and cereals in the country. Public investment in irrigation has steadily declined. In addition, even if the entire irrigation potential of the country is developed, 50% of the arable land is likely to remain rainfed. There is, therefore, an urgent need to give attention to improving the agricultural productivity and diversifying the economy of these areas.   You can download the work from:http://www.dscindia.org/publications.htm Best wishes Anil H. Anil Kumar Librarian Indian Institute of Management Vastrapur Ahmedabad 380 015 Ph: (079) 66324987 -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by MailScanner, and is believed to be clean.