Agricultural Geography

Agriculture continues to be the backbone of Indian economy and rightly remains amajor thrust area in geography. Agricultural geographers in India have diversified theirinterests and have ventured into significant areas of analysis such as land capabilityclassification, agro-ecological concerns, crop diversification and diffusion, problems offood security and vulnerability, dairy farming apart from social and institutional  framework of agriculture.
Industrial Geography
In spite of tremendous potential in this field of research, particularly in the postliberalization phase, not much work appears to have been made. Very few papers havebeen published in this branch of geography in leading journals of India. As industry alongwith agriculture is the backbone of the nation’s economy, the geographers can neglectthis field of inquiry only at their own peril. This is particularly true in the context of avibrant trend of research in this field during the eighties and nineties.

Population Geography
Population related issues remained central to geographical discourse during theperiod under review. Issues that have caught geographers’ attention include population distribution; density and growth; population composition; fertility and reproductivehealth; mortality and morbidity, migration and human development. Migration, both internal and international, appears to be one of the major focuses of researches. Besides;migration from across the international borders, which has led to conflicts and politicalunrest in the frontier states has attracted attention from population geographers. Concern for a better quality of life, reduction of poverty, gender equity and equality has led to several studies in Human Development, management of human resources and sustainabledevelopment. However, continued dependence on census based data has been a limitingfactor. There is an urgent need to go beyond census based data to an understanding of poverty, inter-ethnic differentials in population and characteristics of displaced populations.