In the process of planned and balanced rural and regional development in the developing countries, the set of critical questions faced by them is how to generate full employment for the labour force, how to increase income levels of the people and how to reduce the glaring disparities in the standards of living. One realistic and practical mechanism in meeting the challenge of development appears to be in the realm of Rural Empowerment. It is therefore essential that Entrepreneurship Development be stressed and more so among women. Three cardinal factors, which are vital for economic development in terms of employment generation, utilisation of human, physical and material resources and empowerment of women are stressed in the manuscript cum treatise. Developing entrepreneurship among women cannot be achieved in isolation and suitable conditions need to be created and a conducive environment needed to promote entrepreneurship among women, which would ultimately result in their empowerment. The present book is mainly to focus on the way togo ahead about encouraging women to venture into entrepreneurial activity.

Dr. Sridhar Seetharaman is Advisor (Gender and Rural Development), Arupa Mission Research Foundation, Gurgaon, Haryana. He retired as Associate Professor, Centre for Women’s Development and Gender Studies at National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj, Rajendranagar, Hyderabad, Telangana. He has done considerable research on Entrepreneurship Development and Gender Justice. As the Gender Budget consultant, he assisted the Government of Nagaland in engendering their State Plan. He had organised several training programmes on Total Quality Management, Gender Budgeting, Gender Auditing and Gender Justice. He has taken several sessions on Gender Budget in Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad, Telangana. Jawaharlal Nehru Architecture and Fine Arts University, Hyderabad, Telangana and Fiscal Policy Institute, Bengaluru, Karnataka. He is the recipient of Best Citizen of India Award, 2014 and the Chamnipon of Children Award,2014.