1. Livelihood Transformations and Sustainability in India

India is predominantly a rural country. It is witnessing several transformations in all its major domains. The rural settlements and their livelihoods are also no exception and observing changes in new economic order. The trends suggest that there is declining share of agriculture in the national economy whereas urban population is increasing at a faster rate, which threatens agricultural environs and influence their economic activities significantly. It also adds complications to rural livelihood sustainability. This study is primarily based on the secondary sources of data, collected from various governmental and ministerial publications. It attempts to evaluate transforming status of rural livelihood sustainability in the states of India. UNDP’s normalization method was incorporated to standardize indicators and a modified form of IPCC’s vulnerability index was used to develop “Sustainable Livelihood Index” (SLI). This index is taken as a base for formulating “Livelihood Ladder”, adapted from the Oxfam Report. Main findings of this paper reveal that there are large-scale inter-state disparities for different assets, where central and eastern states of India are found to be poor on livelihood sustainability due to their lower human, social, and financial capital and thus more vulnerable to present-day shocks and stresses while southern and northern states are better placed in terms of livelihood sustainability.