The forces of globalization have intensified the processes of rural-urban interaction along the city fringes by providing impetus to industrial de-concentration towards the peripheral lands in the developing countries. This work attempts to understand the implications of globalized environment for the rural livelihoods and tries to decipher the extent to which the rural workers residing in the vicinity of the six largest metropolitan cities in India are equipped to negotiate with the shrinking natural resource and the resultant changes in the structure of available work. Based on census data,...