Mahabub Hossain

The book is about residents of Dhaka: migrant and non-migrant, poor and non-poor, men and women, young and old. It is about how they have experienced the city's rapid transition for the two decades between 1991 and 2010 in terms of quality of life and livelihoods, and their prospects for a shared future. It is not so common to come across urban studies based on longitudinal data largely due to the high mobility of urban households. Over the 20-year period, the city's population more than doubled and reached double digit figures at 15 million. At the same time, its contribution to the national economy almost trebled from 13 per cent to 36 per cent. An unmistakable trend of economic growth is evidenced along with the rapid decline of urban poverty and a downward trend in inequality in the country during the same reference period. At the other end of the spectrum are the environmental challenges in the context of high density and Dhaka's worst livability ranking. The book answers some of the doubts generated by these contradictory signals of rapid urbanization: is the poorer segment of urban population that migrates with dreams for better lives and livelihoods benefitting from positive economic trends? Are these benefits sustainable in the long run? Have these benefits brought qualitative changes creating scope for this group to have a stake in the city's growing prosperity like their non-poor counterparts?

Less than two decades ago, the world was focusing on the impending food crisis across Asia, which was given little hope of ever being able to meet its rapidly growing food demand. Since then, Asia has made a quantum leap in food production. Technological innovations and policies that promoted intensive rice production systems helped achieve this. The authors of this book argue that there is a growing sense of complacency about future food supplies in Asia and that such complacency is not warranted. While rice productivity may increase, this will be limited by a number of factors: withdrawal of land and labor from agriculture to other uses, increased competition for resources, and land degradation. It is unlikely to match the increase in demand for rice because of population growth. The book provides a thorough assessment of the opportunities for increasing land productivity, including crop diversification. It evaluates the successes and limitations of the Green Revolution for rice in Asia and projects economic and technological trends forward over the next three decades.