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India is home to a large number of tribal or Adivasi communities. Particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) are one among them. The Indian state initiated several development programs in its affirmative action to benefit PVTGs. However, these initiatives have shown some effects on the ground, still a long way to go. After globalization, a lot of studies claim and argue that the state is slowly withdrawing from its agenda and encouraging multinational companies or corporations (MNCs) to take its role. The MNCs have started their operations by extracting resources without helping Adivasi communities. It led to large-scale protests by the tribal people and civil society organizations. The paper critically discusses development initiatives of the post-independent state to ameliorate the conditions of the PVTGs as part of their affirmative action policies. Furthermore, the paper draws inferences from secondary data sources collected from published and unpublished sources, documents, reports, and online sources.

In a development forum, there is a great need to look at the ground realities of organizations, especially in the context of the post-globalization scenario. Thereby comes the notion of 'community' from the donor's point of view. The donors' participation in the daily activities of the people, especially women, to make them earn their means of livelihoods poses questions which are of prime importance to have an academic engagement theoretically, empirically and otherwise. My study discusses the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) in implementing developmental programmes in rural areas across the country. It is noteworthy in the case of sericulture enterprise a large number of women are active at various levels, which further proved to be one of the important crop enterprise prevailing in the locality. This paper attempts to interrogate how women empowered themselves as a part of the CBOs. This could eventually lead to policymakers, government and other agencies to advise development programmes. The paper draws its analysis and inferences from a fieldwork carried out with the sericulturists of a village in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh in India.

The terms 'livelihoods', 'poverty' and 'development' have different meanings in different societies and people. Development implies a better quality of life and enahancement of opportunities, and better access to assets and services to marginal communities: particularly the Adivasis, women and other marginalized communities. Developing its theoretical framework around the existing literature on the issues, this article argues that prevailing factional politics and apathy on the part of the governing agency are preventing the marginalized groups from adequately benefitting from the developmental interventions. Keeping in view the aforementioned argument, an empirical study was conducted in a tribal settlement in South India in order to understand the implications of different developmental interventions initiated both by the state and NGOs to improve the lives and livelihoods of marginalized groups. On the basis of this argument, this article has sought to raise policy questions pertinent to both the policymakers and practitioners on the efficacy of policies related to vulnerable groups.

Clancy, Joy. 2013: Biofuels and Rural Poverty. London and New York: Routledge. 205 pp. $79.95 (Hardback). ISBN: 9781844077199.

In the last few years a participatory watershed program is being implemented in the state of Andhra Pradesh. At present, the Andhra Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project (APRLP) seeks to scale up the ongoing watershed program activities in the state by providing support in the areas of capacity building, livelihood support, and the provision of other schemes and services to the persons and organizations involved. This article is the outcome of the writer's field work in Andhra Pradesh. Using a livelihoods approach, the author reveals that the lives of marginal communities have radically changed as a result of the introduction of watershed programs in the drought-prone areas of this region.