HUMAN DEVELOPMENT: Concept and Issues in the Context of Globalisation

The concept of human development is perhaps as old as the human civilisation. Earlier, it was identified with acquisition of wealth and prosperity. However, in the present times, it is associated with other human activities too that tend to either enhance their skills or help them to improve their perception towards critical socio-economic and cultural issues and enable them to participate meaningfully in the mainstream of developmental activities.

Our experience of more than five decades of planned development shows that the process of planning has not been able to provide a uniform level of human development to all sections of the society. The consensus emerging during all these years has been that by stepping up investment in the fields of education, health, sanitation and other critical social inputs, the capacity of vulnerable sections of the society could substantially be enhanced, which would also help in striking a socio-economic parity. With the onset of globalisation, there has been a drastic cut in the plan allocations in many of these critical social components, which is likely to affect adversely the building up capacity of these groups and ultimately the overall level of human development.

Research papers presented in this book offer a critical analysis of various dimensions of human development.