This compendium of fifteen papers, presented at a conference held at Queen Elizabeth House, Oxford, offers valuable insight into the realities of poverty at the ground level and unequal distribution of powers among different classes in the society in India. Attempting at identifying the poor, it discusses at length the construction of poverty and the poor in colonial and post-colonial India, the measurement, patterns and determinants of poverty, and reconceiving the impact of population change.

Examining the policies for translating growth into development, it describes how to empower the poor, with special focus on expansion of education in rural areas. Finally it deals with the problem of seasonal labour migration, preventing laws and the policies of the urban poor, and how to improve the lot of the poor.