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Right Livelihood Award Winners from India
2008 Krishnammal Jagannathan and Sankaralingam Jagannathan LAFTI2006 Ruth Manorama2004 Swami Agnivesh / Asghar Ali Engineer1996 People's Science Movement of Kerala (Kerala Sasthra Sahithya Parishad1993 19931991 Narmada Bachao Andolan1986 International Society for Ecology and Culture / Helena Norberg-Hodge1985 Lokayan / Rajni Kothari1984 Self-Employed Women's Association / Ela Bhatt
Smt. Krishnammal Jeganathan Right Livelihood Award Winner from Tamilnadu
It has become widely known as the ‘Alternative Nobel Prize’ and thereare now 133 Laureates from 57 countries.Presented annually in Stockholm at a ceremony in the SwedishParliament, the Right Livelihood Award is usually shared by fourRecipients. One of them may receive an Honorary Award, given to aperson or group whose work the Jury wishes to recognize but who isnot primarily in need of monetary support. The others share the prizemoney of 2,000,000 Swedish kronor (approx 223,000 EUR / 310,000USD / 1,43,60,000 INR). The prize money is for ongoing successfulwork never for ersonal use.
 
S.Rengasamy-Introduction to Livelihood Promotion-Madurai Institute of Social Sciences
 
The definition used by Department of Foreign and InternationalDevelopment (DFID) incorporates these sentiments.
'A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including bothmaterial and social resources) and activities required for ameans of living. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope withand recover from stresses and shocks and maintain or enhanceits capabilities and assets both now and in the future, while notundermining the natural resource base' (Chambers, R. and G.Conway, 1992).
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) differentiatesbetween a job and a livelihood, which are often usedinterchangeably
.
Jobs"A job connotes one particular activity or trade that is performedin exchange for payment. It is also a formal agreement, asmanifested by a contract, between an employer andemployee...... . A job can, however, comprise part of an overalllivelihood, but does so only to complement other aspects of alivelihood portfolio.Livelihoods"A livelihood, on the other hand, is engagement in a number of activities which, at times, neither require a formal agreementnor are limited to a particular trade. Livelihoods may or may notinvolve money. Jobs invariably do. Livelihoods are self-directing..... . Livelihoods are based on income derived from "jobs", butalso on incomes derived from assets and entitlements. ""a means of living or of supporting life and meeting individualand community needs"
Introduction to Livelihood Promotion
What is a livelihood? 
The definition of ‘livelihood’ has been extensively discussed among academics anddevelopment practitioners (Ellis, 1998, Batterbury, 2001; Chambers and Conway, 1992;Carney, 1998; Bernstein, 1992; Francis, 2000, 2002; Radoki, 2002).There is a consensus that livelihood is about the ways and means of ‘making a living’. Themost widely accepteddefinition of livelihood stemsfrom the work of RobertChambers and GordonConway: ‘a livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets (including both material and socialresources) and activities required for a means of living’ (Carney, 1998:4).Ellis (2000) suggests adefinition of livelihood as‘the activities, the assets,and the access that jointlydetermine the living gained by an individual or household’.Wallman (1984) who didresearch on livelihoods inLondon in the early 1980sapproached livelihoods asalways more than just amatter of finding or making shelter, transactingmoney, and preparing foodto put on the table or exchange in the market place. It is equally a matter of the ownership andcirculation of information,the management of socialrelationships, theaffirmation of personalsignificance and group identity, and the inter relation of each of these tasks to the other. Allthese productive tasks together constitute a livelihood. For an anthropologist such as
Refer:http://www.livelihood.wur.nl/?s=A1-Livelihood http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x9371e/x9371e00.htm#TopOfPage 
 
The livelihood of a household or individual can be interpreted as their ‘means of living’. Theirmeans of living is based on their capabilities, assets (financial, physical, human, natural resourceand social) and activities.Livelihoods consist of both generation of income as well as the ownership of assets that reducesthe vulnerability of marginalized communities. A livelihood is sustainable when it:
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Can cope with and recover from stresses and shocks, and
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Can maintain or build on available capabilities and assets, and
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Does not undermine the natural resource base.
 
S.Rengasamy-Introduction to Livelihood Promotion-Madurai Institute of Social Sciences
 
Why Livelihood?
 A livelihoods perspective encourages a broaderunderstanding and examination of factors, institutionsand processes that can explain the differing successwith which rural households make a living.Consequently, permits a bringing together of moresectoral approaches which tend to focus on a singleaspect of rural livelihood systems, to create a moreholistic understanding of the options and trade-offsfacing different groups in the face of climate change.
Why Promote Livelihoods?
In the current decade, according to estimates of the Planning Commission for the Tenth Five YearPlan, more than 10 million people in India will be seeking work every year. Thus, to ensure fullemployment within a decade, more than 10 million new livelihoods will have to be generatedevery year. Given the magnitude of the problem, and the dearth of resources for livelihoodpromotion, the task of promoting livelihoods for the poor becomes all the more urgent. It calls fororganizations to use their resources optimally to achieve maximum scale.The primary reason to promote livelihoods is the belief in the essential right of all human beingsto equal opportunity. Poor people do not have life choices nor do they have opportunities.Ensuring that a poor household has a stable livelihood will substantially increase its income, andover a period of time, asset ownership, self-esteem and social participation.The second reason for livelihood promotion is to promote economic growth. The ‘bottom of thepyramid’ comprising nearly 4 billion out of the 6 billion people in the world, who do not have thepurchasing power to buy even the bare necessities of life – food, clothing and shelter. But asthey get steadier incomes through livelihood promotion, they become customers of many goodsand services, which then promote growth. The third reason for promoting livelihoods is to ensuresocial and political stability. When people are hungry, they tend to take to violence, crime.Thus, we see that there are idealistic, utilitarian and plain self-interest based arguments forlivelihood promotion. But whatever be the reason, we need to worry about – how to promotelivelihoods?
Wallman livelihood is an umbrella concept, which suggests that social life is layered and thatthese layers overlap (both in the way people talk about them and the way they should beanalyzed). This is an important analytical feature of the notion of livelihoods.One feature that these definitions and interpretations share in common is that they eloquentlyunderline the generally accepted idea that ‘livelihood’ deals with people, their resources andwhat they do with these. Livelihoods essentially revolve around resources (such as land,crops, seed, labour, knowledge, cattle, money, social relationships, and so on), but theseresources cannot be disconnected from the issues and problems of access and changing political, economic and socio-cultural circumstances.Livelihoods are also about creating and embracing new opportunities. While gaining alivelihood, or attempting to do so, people may, at the same time, have tocope with risks and uncertainties,such as erratic rainfall, diminishingresources, pressure on the land,changing life cycles and kinshipnetworks, epidemics such asHIV/AIDS, chaotic markets,increasing food prices, inflation, andnational and internationalcompetition. These uncertainties,together with new emerging opportunities, influence how material and social resources aremanaged and used, and on the choices people make.
Why Livelihoods? 
The study of livelihoods is relevant for understanding poverty and poverty alleviation. It iswell realized that livelihood framework in general provides insights in the many dimensions,
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Satyabrata Guru

Nice ......will be a useful piece of document

reply04 / 24 / 2012
gunteitb

We appreciate your sharing Mr Rengasamy All the best for your career!

reply10 / 16 / 2009
S.Rengasamy

Thank you for your appreciation

10 / 16 / 2009
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