Dear Friends:

I’m happy to share that my book titled The Role of Microfinance in Women's Empowerment: A Comparative Study of Rural & Urban Groups in India, has just been published by Emerald Publishing U.K. The book compares two alternative models of microfinance in the Indian context. Combining statistical and ethnographic evidence, it provides important new insights into the obstacles to the empowerment of women and their participation in work.

It will be useful reading for all researchers in microfinance ,women's empowerment, banking, development studies and base of the pyramid issues.

The unique features of the book are:

· This new work focuses on the Self-Help Group (SHG) model, an under-studied aspect of microfinance practice, and looks at both rural communicates and urban slums. It compares the Self Help Group (SHG) Federation model ( generally prevalent in the villages of rural India) with the Joint Liability Model ( prevalent in the urban slums ).

· It combines statistical and ethnographic evidence and provides new insights into the lives of the the women, the challenges faced by them and the outcomes due to their affiliation with mature women centric microfinance institutions.

· Twenty eight Case studies have been used to make the content of the book lucid and simple.

The book is available in Kindle edition & Hardcover and can be ordered from the following sites:

Look forward to your support and feedback

Dr Raji Ajwani

Program Manager

BAIF Development Research Foundation

Pune ( India) (www.baif.org.in)