Book excerpt: The present Maharashtra Human Development Report (MHDR) 2012 keeps the spirit of the Eleventh and Twelfth Five Year Plans of ‘faster, sustainable and more inclusive growth’ at the core of its analysis. MHDR 2002 was the state’s first effort in focusing on the prevailing human development scenario in the spheres of growth, poverty, equity, education, health and nutrition. Since then the state has come a long way in the last decade, achieving near-complete enrolments at the primary school level, a wide coverage of health infrastructure and initiation of new incentives, to name a few. The 2012 Report goes beyond being just a situation-analysis of the current human development scenario to a more analytical exercise in facilitating a deeper understanding of what and where the inequalities are, how capabilities can be enhanced, what has been the progress, where the shortfalls are and where the thrust of efforts to promote human development should be. Recognizing the centrality of inclusive growth processes to human development, the need to study human development outcomes disaggregated by gender, rural–urban, regional and social groups is the focal point of this Report. The outcome would be the identification of specific human development goals, evidence-based policy recommendations and directions to how those excluded from the growth and human development processes can be included to reap the benefits of the same.