Stress Perception and Signal Transduction.- Abiotic Tolerance and Crop Improvement.- Sensors and Signal Transducers of Environmental Stress in Cyanobacteria.- Stress Signaling I: The Role of Abscisic Acid (ABA).- Stress Signaling II: Calcium Sensing and Signaling.- Stress Signaling III: Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS).- A Biotic or Abiotic Stress?.- Protein Kinases and Phosphatases for Stress Signal Transduction in Plants.- Nitrogen Source Influences Root to Shoot Signaling Under Drought.- Stress Regulation of Gene Expression.- Abiotic Stress Responses: Complexities in Gene Expression.- Promoters and Transcription Factors in Abiotic Stress-Responsive Gene Expression.- Epigenetic Regulation: Chromatin Modeling and Small RNAs.- Physiology and Metabolism.- Ion Homeostasis.- Glutathione Homeostasis: Crucial for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Plants.- Water Balance and the Regulation of Stomatal Movements.- Responses to Macronutrient Deprivation.- Osmolyte Regulation in Abiotic Stress.- Programmed Cell Death in Plants.- Overcoming Stress.- Varietal Improvement for Abiotic Stress Tolerance in Crop Plants: Special Reference to Salinity in Rice.- Transgenic Approaches.- Marker Assisted Breeding.- Stress, Mutators, Mutations and Stress Resistance.- Systems Biology of Abiotic Stress: The Elephant and the Blind Men.- Global Climate Change, Stress and Plant Productivity.