Amazon.com description: Product Description: The raison d'etre of this collection of essays is both academic as well as pragmatic. While development seems to have acquired a purely economic connotation, the contributors to this book argue that it should actually be understood as a qualitative, directional adjunct of social change entering into the intangible and multidimensional area of the `human'. It has, therefore, a much deeper and fuller significance which can be readily explicated through the use of religion as an important parameter and component in its understanding. Development should be an endeavour to increase the `humanness' of the human. This collection of essays tries to bring about some sort of clarity to the understanding of this concept. By bringing together the various aspects that are imperative for building effective strategies for third world developement in its widest sense, it endeavours to introduce a pragmatic dimension to the concept.