At right angles

The first issue of the year 2025! Not so new, now that we are three months, a quarter of the year and one winter away from the old! In the break between the November 2024 and March 2025 issue, Padmapriya Shirali and I spent a few days in some of the schools in Chamarajanagar district (Karnataka) and Bhopal and Damoh districts (Madhya Pradesh) that the Azim Premji Foundation interacts with. Our return to classrooms and our interactions with teachers and students were delightful and thought provoking and we came back buzzing with ideas and determined to build on the energy and enthusiasm of the children and their teachers. Editors Rudresh and Sandeep Diwakar coordinated our visits and it was heartening to see how teachers and students welcomed the Foundation’s presence in the classroom and how deeply our Resource Persons were connected with the Field. We plan to do this more often – you will be seeing a lot of responses to questions, ideas for articles and suggestions to address misconceptions in this and upcoming issues of At Right Angles

North-East lost forest cover equal to thrice Delhi’s area in last two decades

The 18th edition of the India State of Forest Report 2023 (ISFR 2023) released on December 21, reported an increase in the country’s forest cover by 156.41 sq km in the last two years. The Forest Survey of India (FSI) defines “forest cover” as land with tree canopy density exceeding 10% and covering at least one hectare, which thus includes plantations. According to the report, losses in forest cover have been recorded in the Western Ghats and Eastern States Area (58.22 sq km) and the Northeast (327.30 sq km) since 2021

Budget emphasis on urban governance could benefit workers living in small towns

The Union Budget has clearly focussed on boosting consumption and stimulating job growth with proposals to benefit workers

The Indian reception of Sraffa: a study of book reviews

This paper examines the Indian reception of Sraffa’s Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities (1960) by focusing on book reviews published in prominent Indian journals. While Krishna Bharadwaj’s review in The Economic Weekly (1963) has received significant scholarly attention, this has not been the fate of Sukhamoy Chakravarty’s review in Arthaniti (1961) and J. K. Mehta’s review in the Indian Journal of Economics (1962). In Bellino’s (2008) book chapter focused solely on book reviews of PCMC, there is only a brief engagement with Bharadwaj’s review and the book reviews of Chakravarty and Mehta are only mentioned. From my study of the Indian book reviews, the following key themes emerge: a restatement of key propositions of classical political economy, a critique of marginalism, the relationship between economic theory and policy, and similarities with input-output analysis—thus placing these reviews, especially that of Bharadwaj, as some of the best ones that were published

Can CAMPA compensate for the loss of forest land?

The Supreme Court of India in October 2002 directed that a “Compensatory Afforestation Fund’ (CAF) shall be created, where money is collected from user agencies towards compensatory afforestation (CA) under the Forest Conservation Act, 1980 for accelerating activities for the preservation of natural forests, management of wildlife, and infrastructure development

Assam to see higher temps, lesser rainfall by 2040: Study

Climate of Assam is projected to undergo significant changes by 2040, posing substantial challenges to the state's economy, ecosystem and public health