1. Introduction 2. Micro Enterprise Development & National Initiatives 3. Micro Enterprises and SHGs in Poverty Alleviation 4. Livelihood Promotion – Key Concepts and Models 5. Management of Micro Enterprises in the Study Area 6. Impact of Micro Enterprises on Livelihood 7. Micro Enterprises for the Positive Impact on Livelihood Findings and Suggestions

Contributed papers presented earlier in a conference.

Around the world, a revolution is occurring in finance for low-income people. The microfinance revolution is delivering financial services to the economically active poor on a large scale through competing, financially self-sufficient institutions. In a few countries this has already happened; in others it is under way. The emerging microfinance industry has profound implications for social and economic development. For the first time in history, capital is well on its way to being democratized. 'The Microfinance Revolution', in three volumes, is aimed at a diverse readership - economists, bankers, policymakers, donors, and social scientists; microfinance practitioners and specialists in local finance and rural and urban development; and members of the general public interested in development. This first volume, 'Sustainable Finance for the Poor', focuses on the shift from government- and donor-subsidized credit systems to self-sufficient microfinance institutions providing voluntary savings and credit services.

Invisible to official statistics and operating outside the reach of governmental regulation, informal finance markets often prove more efficient and more fair than their formal counterparts. The authors of these studies emphasize the diversity and richness of informal credit markets.

Beyond Micro-Credit sets out how Indian Micro-Finance Initiatives are combining micro-finance with a wide range of development goals, these include not only poverty alleviation through providing savings, credit and insurance services but also promoting livelihoods, empowering women, building people's organizations and changing institutions.

Rural poverty is often unseen or misperceived by outsiders. Dr Chambers contends that researchers, scientists, administrators and fieldworkers rarely appreciate the richness and validity of rural people's knowledge or the hidden nature of rural poverty. This is a challenging book for all concerned with rural development, as practitioners, academics, students or researchers.

Leprosy, also known as Hansen's disease, is a chronic infectious disease that primarily affects the skin, the peripheral nerves, the upper respiratory tract, and the eyes. The causative agent is an acid-fast bacterium, Mycobacterium leprae, first identified in 1873 by the Norwegian physician, Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen.Leprosy was considered a divine curse for sin in the Old Testament and Karma in Buddhism. The term leprosy originates from the Latin word lepros, meaning defilement. The fact that leprosy has been deemed an incurable disease, causing severe deformities and disabilities, has resulted in severe stigmatization. This has resulted in double suffering by victims, both from the disease itself and from public discrimination. Although documented since antiquity, leprosy currently remains endemic in some developing parts of the world.

The general meaning of the term 'empowerment' is giving to individuals of power to take decisions in matters relating to themselves in relation to self-development1. Garden feels, 'the individual is an effect of power, and at the same time, repressively to the extent to which it is that effect, it is the element of its articulation. The individual with power has constituted, is at the same time its vehicle'2. According to Chandra Shanti Kohli (1997) empowerment in its simplest form means, the manifestation of redistribution of power that challenges patriarchal ideology and the male dominance.