The Organization, Centre for Social Research was founded in 1983. CSR was established by a group of concerned social scientists with the dedication to promote empowerment of women, deprived castes and backward regions through relevant research studies, training and capacity building. Human development has become the focus of global development debates these days. Gender discrimination has emerged as one of the main agenda of the development debates in the recent past. History of gender concerns in India goes back to the nineteenth century when campaigns for the betterment of the conditions of women's lives were taken up. It is around mid seventies when the most recent phase of the women's movement started. In 1971, the government appointed a committee on the status of women in India. It raised basic questions about the socialization processes inherent in a hierarchical society, about the resources, power and assets distribution patterns as well as diverse cultural values in the country.

A number of voluntary organisations have endeavored towards the cause of the under privileged section of the society with a tradition of grass root activism throughout the 20th century. NGOs working with women have expanded in geographical spread, numbers particularly since mid eighties. While the collective reach of the NGOs in terms of the number of women they serve, is small relative to the government programmes, they nevertheless represent an important element in the overall picture related to women's development. Realizing the fact that women have always experienced the status of subjugated class in the Indian society and a new self-image of the women has to be constituted, an attempt has been made by the Centre for Social Research to reconstruct the prevailing image of women. This is sought to be achieved through a process of restructuring existing social relations of men and women and by enlightening and empowering both the sexes. The endeavor is to empower women by building inroads into decision-making institutions from Panchayats (Local units of governance) to the National Parliament. Our goal is to facilitate the process of women achieving economic self-sufficiency and higher awareness levels on social, political and legal issues through mobilization and conscientization.

The major objective of the Centre is to undertake social action to improve the position and condition of different sections of the society for promoting human well-being.

CSR has selected the following three focal areas for concentrated impact

1.Political Empowerment of women by enabling women to participate socially as equal to men specially in the Panchayati raj system not only within the 33% reservations for women but by fighting elections for the unreserved seats also. This implies that our focus necessarily address the issue of awareness building with regard to all governmental schemes, structure and function of Panchayats, developmental programmes, legal provisions with implications on women's lives, be it related to the education of the girl child, child marriage, dowry, feminization of poverty, legal provisions for divorce and alimony and other gender issues.

2.Economic Empowerment of women by enabling institutionalization through organization of self help groups, Mahila mandals, focussing on credit and thrift activities, related to meeting social financial needs and investments for initiating micro enterprises. While facilitating financial and institutional development for initiating economic activities, capacity building for income generation through training in various skills and trades identified as suitable (through a survey) and with potential for sustainability in the project area would be initiated. The concept of economic empowerment does not only address poverty alleviation as it also reaches out to the empowerment of women by bringing incomes in the hands of women there by promoting decision making independent of men in incurring expenditures.

3.Sexual Empowerment of women by promoting not only reproductive and child health but by addressing the social issue of rights to the decisions made regarding the number of children, child spacing and rights over their own bodies, use of reversible contraceptives, etc. The social biases, which result in preferences for male children, female infanticide/ feticide etc., would be directed both to men and women. Organize women collectively against HIV AIDS, violence, sexual and physical abuse of children (rape, incest) and build awareness regarding the legal implications of it.