Rural development provides an understanding which is both broader and more specific than development in terms of economic growth. It is broader because it entails much more than economic growth as factors affecting it are not contained within the discipline of formal economics. Rural development includes not only attention to production, but also to the analysis of distributional issues and, therefore, demands an inter-disciplinary approach in which the broader social and political factors interacting with economic processes are subject to examination. Even in this age of globalisation, rural development has acquired a central role in the international development discourse. This is because there is a shift in the development paradigm along with the process of globalisation and nations need to formulate their rural development strategies fitting into this international discourse.