This is a remarkable book. Kaveri Gill, through her painstaking research, has
opened new areas of investigation into the conditions of life, livelihood, and
employment of the poorest of the poor in the developing countries. They belong
to the informal sector, which exists in all developing countries and also in some
developed countries, where the poor work in conditions of total insecurity—
without any social security, income security, and job security—and survive at a
very low level of income, education, health, nutrition, or sanitation. It has been
recognized in the development literature for quite some time that without
improving the quality of life in the informal sectors of the developing countries,
it is not possible to alleviate poverty and bring about real development. But very
little work has been done to analyse the problems of the informal sector, more
generally the informal economy, which will just add to its workers, that is, those
working in the formal sectors but without any job or social security.