As I write this, the Indo-Dutch Programme on Alternatives in Development (IDPAD), jointly implemented by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) in New Delhi and The Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO) in The Hague, comes to an end after 25 years of successful research collaboration between researchers in India and The Netherlands. The findings reported in this book come from a large project titled, ‘Care of the Aged: gender, institutional provisions and social security in India, The Netherlands and Sri Lanka’ carried out with the financial support of the IDPAD.

Since 1981, IDPAD had five phases of research competition to which both Indian and Dutch scholars were invited to submit proposals on different themes of development issues and selected the best 20 to 25 proposals at each phase for funding. In the first phase (1981–4), IDPAD funded 17 proposals on the five research themes: Small-scale industrialization, Export-oriented industrialization, Multinational Corporations, Dairy Development and Women's Studies. The Centre for Development Studies (CDS) and IDPAD have worked together since its inception, however, from the second phase to the fifth phase, CDS faculty members always held research projects with IDPAD.

In its second phase (1985–9), IDPAD funded 19 proposals on research themes such as New International Economic Order, Comparative Perspectives of Asian Rural Transformation and Recent Trends in European Society.