Women constitute half of the world population, perform nearly two thirds of its working hours but still receive only one-tenth of income and one-hundredth of world’s property. Gender discrimination is distinct and common in all developing countries in the world. Agricultural wages paid to women are on an average 30-40% less than those of men in India. Women have extensive workloads with dual responsibility for farm in general and livestock and house-hold production in India. Micro finance is a broad term that includes deposits, loans, payment services and insurances to poor people. The poor families with very small loans to help them engage in productive activities or grow their tiny business. The activities vary widely ranging from care of animals, grazing, fodder collection, cleaning of animals and sheds to processing milk and livestock products. In livestock management, indoor jobs like milking, feeding, cleaning is done by women in 90% of families while management of male animals and fodder production are affected by men. The multi-stage random sampling method has been followed to select rural women in Rayalaseema region (Anantapur, Chittoor, Kadapa and Kurnool districts) of Andhra Pradesh. The objectives are to study the socio- economic conditions of rural women beneficiaries and analyze the feasibility of investment on dairy enterprise. To assess the impact of micro finance on income and employment of rural women through dairy enterprise and constrains faced by rural women and suggest appropriate measures to improve economic conditions of the rural women dairy entrepreneurs.

During the last six decades, the information theory has attracted the researchers from worldwide and its literature is growing leaps and bounds. Some of its terminologies even have become part of our daily language. Every probability distribution has some uncertainty associated with it. The concept of ‘entropy’ is introduced here to provide a quantitative measure of this uncertainty. Different approaches for measure of entropy and its development has been made, viz: 1.An axiomatic approach, 2.Measure of entropy via measure of inaccuracy and directed divergence and 3.Information measures and coding theorem. A hypothetical data of agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors, in each of nine years were framed. All inputs bought to fisheries and forestry sectors were supplied by other firms of the same sector. It was worked out that the smaller the distance of probability distribution P from Q, the greater will be the uncertainty and greater the entropy. This is always positive and vanishes if and only if P = Q.

Keeping this in view, a study has been conducted to analyse the economics of gladiolus cultivation for the years 2011-12 and 2012-2013 in Jammu district of J&K state. Primary data on costs and returns of the crop were collected by interviewing the farmers through personal visits with the help of an especially structured and pre-tested schedule. The per acre cost of cultivation (C2) of gladiolus were estimated to be ` 210140.00 in the first year and ` 70140.00 in second year on sampled farms. The ‘Cost A1’ constituted the whole direct cost were ` 159116.80 and ` 19116.80/acre, ‘Cost A2’ were ` 170316.80 and ` 30316.80 per acre, ‘Cost B1’ were ` 164815 and ` 24815.00 per acre, ‘Cost B2’ were ` 208580.00 and ` 68580.00 per acre and ‘Cost C1’ was ` 166375.00 and ` 26375.00 per acre for first year and second year respectively on sampled farms. The gross return was ` 300000.00 per acre in both years on sampled farms. The net return was highest in case of second year i.e. ` 229860.00 per acre compared to the net return in first year i.e. ` 89860.00/acre. The Cost-Benefit ratio was highest in case of second year (4.28) compared to that of first year (1.43).

Cashew is one of the most important dollar earning crops of the country. The quantity of export of cashew kernel had registered a growth of 5.71% per annum. This was made possible both due to increased export to countries of import and changes in composition of India’s cashew kernel exports to various destinations. The paper quantifies the changing structure of cashew kernel exports in order to understand the dynamics of changes and the growth rate analysis. The growth rate analysis reveals that, UAE shows the highest growth rate and the countries like USA, Netherland, UK show the negative growth rates. The markov chain model was used to assess the transition probabilities for the major cashew kernel export from India. The result revealed that, the country USA was the highest probability of reduction (0.87) compare to all other countries. The forecasted values for, the countries UAE and ‘other countries’ show the increasing trend and the countries like USA, UK, Netherland, Japan and France show the decreasing trend.

The present study was carried out to estimate the production and utilization of biomass along with the energy potential from surplus biomass in Punjab. It was found that paddy crop was harvested mechanically; cotton was harvested manually while basmati and wheat are harvested by using both mechanical and manual harvesting methods. Average yield of biomass was estimated to be 2.51, 7.59, 6.78, 1.96 and 6.20 tonnes per hectare in the case of wheat, basmati, paddy, paddy husk and cotton sticks respectively. It was estimated that 100, 93.86 and 43.18% of the area was put on fire to burn the stubble in the case of paddy, wheat and basmati respectively. The total production of the biomass was estimated to be 48.26 million tonnes in 2009-10 in Punjab. After meeting the farming consumption needs, the surplus biomass was estimated to be 35.96 million tonnes. Assuming the combustion efficiency being 30%, the energy equivalent of surplus biomass has a potential to run as many as 904 power plants of 5 MW capacities for 365 days 20 hours a day. The findings of the study showed that there exists a vast scope for using biomass in the electricity production and other useful purposes.

The paper presents a critique of rural poverty alleviation programs especially on major programs like focus of analysis was put on The Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP), The Training of Rural Youth for Self-Employment, Development of Women and Children in Rural Areas (DWCRA), Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana (SGSY), Jawahar Rozgar Yojana and Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGA) Act and Debt Relief Scheme. Eradicating rural poverty’ as an improvement process, rural society is aspiring to move from lower economic and lower social standard to higher standard in the lives of the rural people. ‘Rural poverty’ is an extremely difficult subject to deal with because of a huge variety of socio-economic and ecological situations in which it takes place. Thus, the policies for the eradication rural poverty have to be targeted at the rural poor, which have been at the receiving end of the ill effects of poverty over the ages. In this gap it explains pros and cons of the programs based on existing literature which has emerged from empirical and exploratory sources.

Lower productivity (7.28%) of organic jute associated with higher prime cost of cultivation (11.27%) has made organic growers to earn a net return 20.42 below conventional average. Higher premium prices for organic is not enough to cover the dual set back in yield loss and larger prime cost of organic jute production. But the yield of jute produced by this eco-friendly farming system is marginally greater (1.37%) than that of inorganic managed farms. Higher premium prices along with increased productivity has helped the farmers to realise 9.30% more total return which has not only compensated the 19.76% more prime cost of cultivation, but also held them to obtain a net return of 1.55% above inorganically produced jute. Development of dedicated marketing channel and extensive programme for promotion of products produced from organic jute will ensure higher premium prices is required to incentivise growers to continue and expand area under this sustainable crop production system.

Productivity growth in agriculture is both a necessary and sufficient condition for its development. Total factor productivity (TFP) is an important measure to evaluate the performance of any production system and sustainability of a growth process. There are several reports that total factor productivity growth is declining over the years in many parts of India even with the application of increased inorganic fertilisers. The cropping system is sustainable if it can maintain total factor productivity growth over time. The TFP growth rate showed stagnation in the crop sector (negative and very low TFP growth rate Annum-1) in Kerala and a similar pattern was observed in all districts. A perspective of the TFP changes across the districts and state and the percentage share of total factor productivity in output growth of the crop sector in Kerala showed clear signs of unsustainability of the crop sector. The study revealed that all the districts (except Kollam, Idukki, Wayanad and Palakkad) and the state as a whole, the share of TFP in the output growth was negative during the time period 1980-81 to 2009-10. The period wise analysis also derived deceleration in the total factor productivity growth.

The present study was undertaken on sixty borrowers of cooperative bank during 2009 to 2012 in Dimapur district of Nagaland to examine the impact of loan on borrowers a resource use efficiency on pooled data as well as on different farm size group were fitted, which was found to be significant. As per the client satisfaction index 48.33% were medium satisfied, followed by 23.67% as low satisfied and remaining 25.00% as highly satisfied with the extension services of banks available presently. It was further observed that on rank based quotient the foremost constraints was of amount of loan, followed by preparation of DPR, lack of technical guidance from bank, time of disbursement, subsidiary / rebate on loan, disbursement of loan, credit facilities and miscellaneous, form issued by the bank, knowledge about type of loan, bank interest rate, filling up of loan forms, repayment period etc at the lower scale.

In, this study current trend in pulse crops production has been emphasised. The study was based on secondary data from 1950-51 to 2012-13. The data is based on several governmental documents and web sites. The linear, quadratic and exponential functions were fitted in order to analyse the trends in area, production and productivity of pulse crops in India. Quadratic functional form was employed to fit the trend due to its higher R2 value as compared to other two forms. Besides these, compound growth rate (CGR), co-efficient of variation (CV) and instability index (II) were also computed. In the present study the effects on area, productivity as well as their interactions towards increasing trend towards the production were estimated. Further study reveals that in the present fitted linear quadratic form the ‘c’ value have positive and statistically significant on overall time period of pulse production in the country more particularly during Phase I and Phase II. The growing of pulse crops was not risky as revealed by the lower CV. The CV of area, production and productivity of pulse crops were less than 0.08%. The instability indices for area, production and productivity for pulse crops were positive and thereby indicating no risk for growing pulse crops in coming days. The increase in production is due to increase in area as well as interaction of area and productivity of pulse crops in the study periods.

The present study was undertaken to analyze the incidence and effects of diseases in Sheep. The prevalence of specific diseases (42.0%) (FMD 11.7% and HS 30.30%) were more prominent followed by parasitic diseases (18%) digestive diseases (18%) and respiratory diseases (18.0%). while reproductive and other diseases (enterotoxaemia, skin infections) were also prevalent at lower morbidity rate (2.0%) in the study area. Lambs were highly affected by parasitic diseases (41.67%). In young stocks the highest proportional morbidity rate was observed due to digestive diseases (26.32%) while in adults other diseases (4.0%) had high morbidity. Males were affected more by specific diseases (48.72%) followed by parasitic diseases (23.08%). But in females, highest proportional morbidity rate was observed due to respiratory diseases (22.95%).The highest mortality was due to specific diseases (41.86%) followed by parasitic diseases (20.93%) and digestive diseases (20.93%). The analysis of the data on the effect of disease on wool yield in sheep did not reveal any significant difference in wool reduction due to pasturellosis and circling diseases. Overall wool reduction due to both diseases was (44.88%) but pasturellosis had higher effect (44.94%) than circling disease (44.76%) on wool production in sheep.

Issues relating to linkages of social sector with economic growth have been in much attention by researchers in recent times. A number of academic as well as policy measures have contributed to this phenomenon. At the academic level there has always been felt for relook into the importance of linkages of social sector with economic growth. A question that is frequently raised in connection with human development is whether it has link with economic growth and social development. Therefore, in this study, an attempt is made to study issues relating to linkages of social sector with economic growth.

Supply response studies in the past were based on traditional econometric techniques (classic linear regression) and the nerlovian framework. Results of traditional econometric techniques are reliable when the time series data are stationary. However, there can be a possibility of some macroeconomic time series data are non-stationary, thereby results and conclusion drawn from using those techniques are having the risk of invalidity. This paper specifically attempted to quantify the relationship between pulses production and price and non price factors viz., land productivity, annual rainfall, irrigated area and revenue difference between cereals and pulses, when the variables in the data expressed in levels are neither stationary [I(0)] nor non-stationary [I(1)], and do not have the same order of integration.Finding of this study suggests rainfall and revenue difference between the cereals and pulses are major determinants of pulses production.

Human resources in an economy constitute a significant input in the production process of goods and services. The study of human resources, their quality and problems is of immense use in manpower planning in both developing as well as developed economies. Due to low employment potential in other sectors; most of the population is forced to be dependent on agriculture. Employment in agriculture is mostly seasonal and intermittent in character. The labourers suffer with seasonal unemployment. During the periods of peak agricultural activity, the demand for labour is high and during the off season they have to face acute unemployment problem. In the areas where multiple cropping is practiced, the labourers get employment throughout the year with minimum period of unemployment. The low wages are responsible for their sub human standard of living. It is highly difficult for an agricultural labourer to make their both ends meet with these low wages. The chronic imbalance between labour supply and complementary resource in agriculture is normally expected to result in fixing up of wages subsistence levels over large parts of the country. Female labour use will be high in case of paddy than male labourers. The intensive and difficult nature of operation in case of sugarcane requires mostly male labour. Since, agricultural sector experiences excessive dependence of population eking out their livelihood. In the absence of alternative work, they joined the ranks of agricultural labour to earn their living. Their low standard of living permits them to be satisfied with subsistence and low wage.

The Toto is one of the smallest and primitive tribe of our country. Due to isolation these people are able to preserve their primitive culture. They had settled only in a small village situated on the western bank of the river Torsha. This area located on the border area between India and Bhutan. Its distance from Jalpaiguri district town is 100 k.m. North –East and 67 km North“West from Alipurduar sub divisional town and 21 km North only from Madarihat. In the old days the Totos were exclusively dependent on the forest products. Hunting and gathering of timber, fruits and forest nuts constituted their main source of living. But in course of time they have brought changes in their style of living, since their initial sources of income gradually became harder. Later they worked as porters and carried oranges from Bhutan to the sellers of plain area for their subsistence and livelihood. Recently government has taken many steps to facilitate the living hood of Totos , primary school, high school and health centers are there in Toto para. In this paper an attempt has been taken to measure the Multi-dimensional Poverty Index of Toto community. Poverty was measured in Human Development Reports through the Human Poverty Index (HPI) from 1997-2009. In 2010, the MPI replaced the HPI. The MPI addresses the imperfections of HPI by allowing comparisons across countries or regions of the world, as well as within-country comparisons between regions, ethnic groups, rural and urban areas. The MPI reveals the combination of deprivation that strike a household at the same time. A household is considered as multidimentionally poor if it is deprived in some combination of indicators whose weight sum is 30% or more of the dimension.

The concept of farm efficiency has important implications for size productivity relationship and the extent to which farms have adopted the current technology. Using farm level input output data on paddy cultivation of a set of farmers in West Bengal, we have tried to ascertain the pattern of efficiency. The study reveals that there is an over-utilisation of available resources as well as considerable scope for expanding output in West Bengal agriculture. The paper also deals with the efficiency differential among different categories of farmers in respect of agro-climatic zone in West Bengal. JEL Classification Number: O130, O400, O160, I310.

The present study entitled Economic Analysis of Marketing Performances in the Rythu Bazars (Direct Marketing) In Hyderabad City was conducted in the Greater Hyderabad city, capital of Andhra Pradesh. Primary data were collected from the selected sample by using pre-tested schedule of questions developed for the study. Price spread, producer’s price, producer’s share in consumer rupee, marketing margin, total marketing cost and marketing efficiencies were calculated to compare various Rythu bazars and the local market.

TQM has assumed a great importance in today’s highly competitive education industry. TQM has been widely implemented throughout the world. Many institutes have arrived at the conclusion that effective TQM implementation can improve their competitive abilities and provide strategic advantages in the marketplace. There are many approaches used for implementation of TQM in education sector. These approaches are based on number of National Quality Awards (NQA’s) developed by governments of various countries. Further each National Quality Award has its own different set of critical success factors (CSFs). It therefore creates a lot of confusion for the educational institutes, as to, which critical success factors to choose and which not, so as to implement the concept of TQM for achieving excellence. This paper aims to develop a new framework for TQM implementation by doing a comparative study of 21 major National Quality Awards. The comparative study will be beneficial for the institutes to find out comprehensive list of CSFs for TQM implementation and thus helps in achieving excellence in the educational field.

Worldwide sugar is being produced in over 100 countries for the past several years. Larger proportion of world sugar production is consumed domestically and internationally small proportion only traded. Due to the small trading proportion leads to changes in production and government policies. As only a small proportion of world sugar production is traded freely, sugar price is unstable in the global market. Government control over quantum distribution of free sale sugar in the open market in turn affected the price of the sugar and minimum support price for sugarcane. The study would help the decision makers of sugar companies to focus on the major activities that may improve the overall market performance. Forty sugar companies which are listed in the Bombay Stock Exchange were selected based on the extent of market capitalization and annual volume of sales. The data were collected from the PROWESS database Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Mumbai for the period from 2007 to 2012. The data collected were consolidated and subjected to market structure, conduct and performance analysis (SCP) to draw meaningful inferences. In order to study the market structure and power of the sugar companies Herfindahl Hirschman index and Lerner index was used. The market structure of the companies in North and West zone was highly competitive and these companies had little control over pricing implying lesser market power.

India is second largest producer of fruits and vegetables in world. India produces about 14% of world’s vegetables from 15% world’s area. The vegetable productivity in India is less than the world average productivity. Nearly 30-40% vegetables were wastage during the supply chain i.e. reaching from producer to consumer. Most of the marketing of vegetables in India is done in unorganised sector and very little quantity is marketed through organised sector. Present study was an attempt to study the marketing channels and to examine the marketing efficiency of organized retail chain. The Varanasi district of Uttar Pradesh was selected purposively for the present study.Spencer retail Bhelupur was selected purposively. A total of 45 farmers, 4 intermediaries, one retailer and 60 consumers were selected. Vegetables viz tomato, cabbage, pea, okra and brinjal were selected for the study. Among the organized supply chain i.e. channel II, the cost incurred per kg of vegetables was much lower than the cost incurred in the traditional supply chain i.e. channel I. In channel – I, the net return and marketing efficiency was higher for channel II than channel I for all the vegetables under study. At the same time organized supply chain was found to be smallest price spread. Hence organized supply chain (channel – I) was found more efficient as compared to unorganized supply chain (Channel – II). Hence it is advisable to the farmers to sell their produce through modern supply chain i.e. channel II as it is more efficient because the commodity was purchased directly from the producer. However due to APMC Act Spencer retail was not permitted to procure commodities directly from the farmers. Therefore it was suggested that policy reform should be done to facilitate direct marketing.

The present study examined marketed surplus, disposal pattern of milk and constraints faced by smallholder dairy farmers in Punjab. For the purpose Amritsar district was selected and a sample of 80 dairy farmers consisting of 20 dairy farmers each from landless (LL), marginal (MR), small (SM) and others (OT) categories were selected from two blocks and four villages of Amritsar district. It was found that milk production, consumption and marketed surplus has direct relationship with farm size. The average production of milk was 27.55, 37.05, 40.95 and 45.2 litres/day for LL, MR, SM and OT dairy farm and per capita availability of milk was 690, 843, 869 and 935 gm/day which was quiet above the national average of 290 gm/day and minimum recommendation of ICMR of 250 gm/day. On an overall basis 11.26, 6.40, 7.40 and 18.12 litres of milk/day was sold by sample households through dairy cooperatives, private milk processors, milk vendors, consumers and halwaiis. Except MR farmers rest all of the selected dairy farmers sold their produce through modern milk marketing channels which includes milk cooperatives and private milk processor in the study area. Thus SM holder dairy farmers have equal access to modern milk marketing channel in the study area. Various constraints ranked by dairy farmers as costly feed and fodder ranked first followed by lack of A.I. and veterinary facilities in village. The lack of organized milk marketing was at the bottom of the constraints identified by dairy households. The sample dairy farmers faced all the constraints with almost equal intensity irrespective of the size categories.

This study aims to quantify the gap between current and potential yields of major crops namely wheat, rice and sugarcane in eastern region of Uttar Pradesh, and the constraints that contribute to this yield gap. In the study area, yield gaps exist in different crops ranging up to 53%. In Uttar Pradesh, yield gap varied from 20.01 to 53.85 %, 15.56 t0 30.10% and 5.8 to 28.89% with the average gap of 28.26 %, 20.93% and 17.5% for rice, wheat and sugarcane crops respectively in the irrigated region of Uttar Pradesh. The yield gaps are mainly caused by socio-economic, credit institutional/policy related factors, extension services and lack of improved technology. Different strategies, such as integrated crop management (1CM) practices, timely supply of inputs including credit to farmers, research and extension collaboration to transfer the new technologies have been discussed as strategies to minimize yield gaps. Suggestions have been made to make credit available to resource-poor small farmers to buy necessary inputs. Efforts should be made to update farmers’ knowledge on the causes of yield gaps in crops and measures to narrow the gaps through training, demonstrations, field visits and monitoring by extension agencies to achieve high yield. The government should realize that yield gaps exist in different crops of Uttar Pradesh and therefore, explore the scope to increase production as well as productivity of crops by narrowing the yield gap and thereby ensure food security.

A field experiments was conducted during winter seasons of 2010-11 and 2011-12 at Agricultural Research Farm, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi to study the effect of herbicide mixtures and differential rate of nitrogen application of economics of wheat under Indo-Gangetic Plains of eastern Uttar Pradesh. The experiment was laid out in factorial randomized complete block design and replicated thrice, having three factors. First factor comprised of three herbicides viz. weedy check, sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron [32 g ha-1] and carfentrazone [10 g ha-1] + fenoxaprop-p-ethyl [100 g ha-1], whereas, second and third factors comprised of two nitrogen rates (120 kg N ha-1 and 160 kg N ha-1) and three times of nitrogen application ( 50% basal + 50% CRI, 50% basal + 25% CRI + 25% flowering and 33.3% basal + 33.3% CRI + 33.3% flowering), respectively. Significantly highest grass return, net return and benefit cost ratio were observed with application of sulfosulfuron + metsulfuron [32 g ha-1]. Increasing nitrogen level from 120 to 160 kg ha-1 significantly increased the economic return. Application of nitrogen in three split (50% basal + 25% CRI + 25% flowering) proved significantly in term of grass return, net return and benefit cost ratio over other split application of nitrogen.

The Indian Cashew industry provides employment to more than 5 lakh people both directly and indirectly, particularly in the rural areas and it thus plays a very vital role in the economy. Today nuts constitute an important part of diet in several countries of the world. In Indian cashew processing factories, over 95% of the workers are women. The total export earnings from export of cashew kernel and cashew nut shell liquid has increased from ` 447.80 crores in 1990-91 to ` 4390.68 crores in 2011-12. India is facing tough competition from Vietnam and Brazil in the exports of Cashew Kernels. The NPC for the period 2004 under exportable hypothesis was 0.98, which also revealed that the domestic prices received by the farmers were lower than the international prices, which also implied that the domestic producers were disprotected or rather taxed compared to a situation prevailing under free trade condition. USA was one of the most stable countries among major importers of Indian cashew kernel as indicated by the high retention probability of 70.49%. India could not retain the previous export share to Singapore.The major competitors for India in the world market are Vietnam, Brazil, Indonesia and Tanzania. A dependency on one or two export market would increase the trade risk in the near future. Hence, appropriate export promotion strategies are to be evolved to diversify the geographical concentration.

The present study was conducted during 2011-2012 in purposively selected sub-divisions of Jammu province, Jammu and Kashmir covering 15 villages and a sample of 225 potato growers was selected through proportionate random sampling method. The study revealed that the major constraints for the adoption of crop production technologies faced by the potato growers were complicated seed treatment technique (100.00%), non-availability of fertilizers at proper time (76%), financial problem (72.89%), non-availability of insecticides/ pesticides at proper time (64.64%), high cost of fertilizers (61.77%), high cost of seed (60.04%), high cost of fungicides (57.78%) and labour problem (54.66%).

Kerala’s agriculture development experience since the last few decades has been characterised by sharp decline in the area under food crops and the substantial expansion in the area under non-food crops. The analysis of the growth trends of area of principal crops in Kerala clearly revealed that the cropping pattern in the state made a significant change from food crops to non-food crops. Coconut came to the first position by pushing rice to the third. There must be certain determinants that motivated the farmers to make such a shift. Supply response in terms of area response and yield response models were used to analyse the determinants. The determinants estimated are lagged area, expected price of the crop, lagged yield, expected yield risk and price risk, average annual rainfall, irrigated area, etc. The analysis revealed that the irrigated area, rainfall and price risk factors are the significant variables affecting the area allocation of coconut in Kerala and the crop’s yield response, irrigated area, rainfall and expected price risk are the strong variables.

Women constitute half of the population and so their participation in the household and economic activities at par with men is necessary for the development of mankind. The equality of women with men would remain a myth till women become economically self-reliant. Unpaid works affect women “employment” and income, social benefits and well-being. Women’s employment is generally low because unpaid work tends to constrain women’s participation in the formal, paid labour market. However, poverty and the financial crisis compel women to engage in economic activities and earn income in the informal economy. Thus women perform subsistence and livelihood activities or engage in micro-enterprises and generate income for the household. But their informal activities do not reduce their unpaid work; in fact, they continue to perform both the unpaid and paid work.

Rural aquaculture as a weapon to fight poverty and reduce inequality has received renewed attention in recent years. It contributes to poverty alleviation and provides employment to millions of people, both in the sector itself as well as in support services. Rural aquaculture pertains to the farming of aquatic organisms by small-scale farming household or communities, usually by extensive or semi-intensive low-cost production technology appropriate to their resource base. In rural aquaculture there is low level of fish production for household use and family income. Its production and income potential has largely remained undocumented. Development of rural aquaculture can be accomplished in two ways - by increasing the area devoted to aquaculture and by intensifying production in existing aquaculture areas. Recent discourses on small-scale rural aquaculture concluded that aquaculture should not be viewed as an isolated technology but be considered as one aspect of rural development and form part of a holistic approach to development. The institutional mechanisms by which the rural poor can access and benefit from aquaculture are being duly emphasized. Researchers in India and elsewhere have demonstrated the impact of rural aquaculture on the lives of poor. In terms of providing nutritious food (fish being the cheapest animal protein) and creating employment opportunities aquaculture interventions have proved to be quite useful. Changing perspectives of rural aquaculture; shift in focus from productivity to profitability; aqua farmers turning into aqua innovators and several other aspects are discussed in the paper.