CMDR has now crossed more than a quarter of a century of its existence. This is the occasion for self introspection about the journey it has covered so far and the journey it has to cover in the future. It has passed through a tumultuous struggle so far, the struggle for strengthening its roots as a major think tank in north Karnataka and a struggle for sustenance and stability. While these struggles are continuing our future initiatives should introduce further strength for stability and sustenance of the institute making it more viable, self reliant and providing at the same time an identity to it in the comity of social science research institutes in the country. Those who are observing the development of CMDR from its inception must be noticing that CMDR has been known as an institute focusing on social sector, considering social sector as the trigger for the overall development of the region and its people. The Centre has also focused on the micro level perspectives of the sector/s or sub sectors which it has taken up for researching implying that while aggregative perspectives might help develop a sweep of understanding the issue in question, micro level perspectives are necessary for understanding the various nuances of the issue and providing deeper insights useful for policy making. The Centre also has aimed at demonstrating the effectiveness of its policy insights in some of the chosen areas of study through action research initiatives. It may not be wrong to state that CMDR has been one of the pioneering institutes among ICSSR institutes in highlighting the importance of action research in social science research by actually conducting such action research. There have been many firsts for CMDR so far as social science researches are concerned. For example, CMDR is probably one of the first institutes in Karnataka if not in the southern region of the country in undertaking serious studies in tobacco economics, including tobacco cultivation and tobacco consumption, integrating action research with usually followed research approaches; it is probably one of the very few institutes emphasizing the importance of supply side controls and the need for coordinated international level initiatives for effective tobacco control; it has been probably the first in highlighting the need for systematic studies of merit bads such as addiction to tobacco, alcoholic drinks, etc. It is first in demonstrating the usefulness of novel approaches in decision making such as sectoral accounting systems (like health accounting, educational accounting, etc); its action researches in terms of adoption of certain villages for tobacco economics studies, health economics studies, etc and experimenting with its insights derived from usual research studies with regard to selected areas, can be considered as highly challenging and useful. Its micro level studies of evaluation in the field of education, health, environmental challenges associated with some types of life styles (like smoking, gutka, second hand smoking, etc and their effects on air quality, health and even education) are too important to be overlooked. The Centre has been emphasizing the importance of multi disciplinary perspectives in its research and has been trying to bring different discipline experts on a common research platform to comment upon the issues of socio economic development through the methodology of individual disciplines so that the research studies would finally have a multi disciplinary perspective. The Centre has been designated as an Education Data Bank and its very detailed Data and Information System publications on Elementary Education and Higher Education have been considered as pioneering attempts in compilation, processing and presentation of the quantitative and qualitative data on these sub sectors of education in an user friendly manner. The initiatives taken by the Centre in the field of environmental economics are quite notable and they need to be further strengthened. The fact that the Centre has been able to develop its own campus in Dharwad is another feather in its cap, which certainly has put an end to its dependence on other institution/s for its research working space requirements. Thanks to ICSSR for providing the necessary financial assistance to CMDR that now our institution can function in its own building, which in due course also needs to be expanded in view of increasing felt requirements.