cornell.edu (05.02.2024) The Future of India’s Social Safety Nets: Focus, Form, and Scope explains how an array of social welfare programs (comprising the safety net) have emerged as a leitmotif of social policy in independent India and explores the key challenges and scope for innovations in redesigning India’s social safety net system for the future. This open-access book provides a comprehensive analysis of India’s safety net by combining insights from a wealth of interdisciplinary scholarship on economic development, social protection, and the social policy process. It unpacks India’s social welfare programs in terms of their three essential aspects—focus (intended beneficiaries), form (transfer modalities), and scope (developmental objectives). Highlighting the developmental achievements and shortcomings of these independent schemes, the book proposes a framework to foster human resilience through social protection. Lessons from this book are equally relevant for other developing countries as they seek to build an efficient social safety net system.