The book, a compilation of Malcolm Adiseshiah memorial lectures, gives a wide array of perspectives on India’s developmental process in the last few decades.

The contributors are distinguished scholars with expertise in the fields of economics, education, environment, history, political science, policy studies and sociology. The development perspectives presented in this volume differ not only in terms of the discipline in which the authors have had formal academic training, but also in terms of the inter-disciplinary approaches they have adopted to explore India’s development experience. The book mainly addresses issues relating to distributional aspects of growth and needed correction in the process of economic change that would take distributional justice in its stride. The free flowing style of presentation, without compromising on the rigour of analysis, will be attractive both for students and experts in social sciences.

Development has enjoyed the status of being one of our most prominent concerns for over five or six decades. What is fascinating is that concerns within the broad field of development have altered, sometimes subtly and at others imperceptibly but the change has exercised an impact on the discipline in terms of its evolution which like development itself is an ongoing process. The Adiseshiah lectures apart from being a tribute to a pioneer of the first order in development studies reflect these changing concerns. And what this volume presents is a perspective on this evolution.
       — V.K. Natraj
           Former Director, Madras Institute of
           Development Studies (MIDS), Chennai.

This compilation, fittingly, perpetuates the grand intellectual legacy of Dr Malcolm Adiseshiah. It combines academic rigour with social commitment and speaks to a range of issues impinging on development in contemporary India. The authors featured in these pages are not necessarily on the same page in their approaches to the problems they have chosen to address. But their domain expertise shines forth and illuminates the subject at hand in a manner that is uniquely revealing and rewarding to the curious, enquiring mind. They together make this an in-depth, multidimensional compendium whose value, in these times of challenged intellectualism, cannot be overemphasised. 
       —  Sashi Kumar
            Chairman, Media Development Foundation &
           Asian College of Journalism, Chennai.

R. Srinivasan is an Associate Professor in Econometrics, University of Madras. He has more than 25 years of experience in teaching and research in economics.

He was a member of the State Planning Commission (2006-2011) and many other policy making and academic bodies. His researches have been in the areas of public finance and regional economics. His special interest in teaching of economics led him to organise periodic workshops for teachers of economics in schools and colleges to explore new teaching techniques and to reform economics curriculum. He has been extensively contributing on economic issues  for both print and electronic media.