Communication and Development: The Challenge of the Twenty-first Century

Development has been the dominant theme of the international discourse in the decades following the second world war. It has been a search rather than an achieved goal ?a continued quest for better quality of life for the deprived and the disadvantaged sections of the population.
At the time of independence India made a tryst with destiny and pledged to have a society free from poverty, ignorance and disease. To what extent we have been able to redeem our pledge or translate our vision into reality.
The grim reality is that even today thirty-five per cent of the population is below the poverty line; we have one of the highest incidence of malnutrition and the highest infant and mortality rates in the world.
Today civil society organisations, which comprise the third system ?voluntary bodies, universities, associations of trade and industries are coming up and participating in policy formulation.
The work looks at the contemporary development and communication landscape in different sectors in the country ?Rural Development, Literacy, Education and Distance Learning; and the Challenges of Environmental Protection and Human Rights. The endeavour has been to focus attention on the challenges that face the country in the 21st century and the opportunities and possibilities of meeting these challenges of social and economic development.