The quality of education depends largely upon the teacher. Hence building teacher capacity through continuous professional development of teachers is critical to the quality of education. Systems and programs for continuous professional development for school teachers in the formal educational system in India are inadequate and often ill-conceived. Apart from other lacunae, they often do not recognize the professional identity and agency of the teacher. Voluntary Teacher Forums (VTFs) that are facilitated by Azim Premji Foundation in different locations of India, as part of an integrated and multimodal approach to continuous professional development, try to address this central issue. This study shows that VTFs are evolving as very useful platforms for collaboration and peer learning amongst teachers in various locations. It shows that given an environment that allows for easy access to meaningful opportunities, teachers will commit their time, talents and resources to their own professional development. The study further recognizes however, that the real issue is to understand how such forums can be made to happen in different locations in a context as complex as the Indian public education system. While this study highlights certain crucial dimensions of the VTFs – including what happens within these forums and the efforts that go behind it – these continue to be subjects for our future research works.

Economic reforms sought to replace the Indian statedominant economy with a liberal, competitive market economy. However, a plethora of recent scams indicate that collusive rentsharing arrangements between business and policy makers are prevalent. A nexus has developed, linking politicians and business, as well as the bureaucracy. These trends signal a breakdown of competitive markets and the accumulation of wealth via corruption. This paper explains crony capitalism within a framework of interaction between four stakeholder groups whose motives and behaviour have altered in the recent context. These are political executives, political parties, business entities and the bureaucracy. Using the coal mine block allocation controversy as a case study, we examine the modus operandi of crony capitalism as a capture of the policy process. We examine the limitations of the present corrective political and legal processes. 

The paper concludes with a set of recommendations for curbing crony capitalism via reform of : 

(a) the political funding system,
(b) the policy process,
© the audit institution and
(d) the business environment

Volume 6 Issue 1: The Art of the Matter — can a picture be a powerful pedagogical tool? At Right Angles believes it can, and if you read the write up on the facing page, I’m sure you will agree with us. Going to the heart of the art is key to mathematics and there’s more of the same inside this issue. We begin with Ramya Ramalingam, a sixteen-year-old school girl, unravelling the mysteries of Knot Theory for us. And Haneet Gandhi picks up where her series on Tessellations stopped, with a fascinating article on tiling and the pictures we can create with different combinations and permutations of polygons.

In the Classroom section, Khushboo Awasthi opens up the Square Root Spiral with a series of investigative questions; Ujjwal Rane proves Fagnano’s Theorem in several innovative ways. CoMaC describes an unusual way to bisect an angle and also manages to pull yet another 3−4−5 triangle which has long connected math with art pops up in Kepler’s triangle — read more about it in Marcus Bizony’s article. And in How To Prove It, Shailesh Shirali uses Ptolemy’s theorem to reveal all kinds of fascinating relationships in cyclic quadrilaterals.

Tech Space features the first part of a two-part series on constructive definitions; Michael de Villiers shows you how to do so with a GeoGebra activity centered on the golden rhombus. Truely cutting edge math pedagogy!

Our review this time is by Kamala Mukunda who shares her views on Liping Ma’s classic Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics. This is a must-have for every school library and a must-read for mathematics teachers of all classes.

Finally, it’s Time — this Pull Out by Padmapriya Shirali will give you several new ideas to introduce this all important concept and help students quantify something which impinges on their consciousness long before they come to school.

The teacher is central to the teaching — learning process, whatever a school’s policies, whether private or public, whatever board it has chosen to adopt. The teacher is an essential component of the success of the process. This being the case it is essential to consider what ​‘creates’ a good, effective teacher and what sustains her and , through her, the framework of the school. This Issue is aimed at not only teachers and teacher-educators, but also policy makers and observers, in short, anyone with an interest in education. The focus articles deal with the policy and practice of teacher development and suggests alternatives while two more examine gender sensitisation and pre-service teacher preparation discussing in considerable detail the curriculum and its realities. This is followed by articles from practitioners across the field, from both private and public institutions. Teachers have recounted their experiences on the ground. There are critiques of the present system holding up practices against the light of theory, while some teachers have described their positive encounters, testifying to the dedication of colleagues working with enthusiasm and vigour in remote areas, without the help of sophisticated teaching aids.

Engage with 2 themes — ​‘Emerging Trends in Physics’ and ​‘Indian Science Facilities’ — by exploring methods & processes defining future research in areas as fascinating as the discovery of black holes, understanding dark matter, using radio-astronomy to probe the universe, enabling space travel, the search for exoplanets, & establishing human settlements on Mars. In ​‘Origins’ & ​‘Annals of History’, piece together current understanding of our shared history through the beginnings of space-time & planetary worlds, the notion of elements, or that of life. Discover simple classroom activities to reveal & challenge mental models of force in ​‘The Science Lab’, encourage the use of art to study ecology in ​‘The Science Teacher at Work’, or integrate social justice in the science curriculum in ​‘Research to Practice’. Also discover little-known aspects of ​‘The Origins of Composting’ & ​‘Ocean Microbes’ in our pull-out posters!

Empirical research in economics and, to a lesser extent, in other social sciences is largely dependent upon government statistics. It is generally assumed that governments are committed to collecting and disseminating correct statistics. As a result, the mutually constitutive relationship between politics, economy, and statistics, and the possibility of systematic manipulation of statistics-driven by the structural features of this relationship, has received insufficient attention within economics. This paper examines the implications of the absence of shared preferences over the quality of statistics within a government. It explores the multiplicity of conflicting maps of the State of Nagaland issued by different tiers and wings of the government to underscore the lack of attention paid to a statistic as crucial as area. The paper situates the cartographic-statistical confusion in its political and economic contexts, and suggests that political-geographic arguments are being used to advance political-economic interests along contested borders. It argues that the confusion is not amenable to a technical resolution as it is linked to the dispute over Nagaland’s place within the Union of India and the border disputes between Nagaland and its neighbouring states.

The paper analyses the debates surrounding ​‘work’ as part, or as an outcome, of school education in India and argues that these have not reckoned adequately the socioeconomic reality of the corresponding times. The outcome of education depends on ideas and resources shaping its provisioning, and the use by the people. Colonial rulers provided a liberal schooling which did not aim at ​‘schooling for all’ or imparting skills as part of schooling. Such an education was attractive to those children who were not working in agriculture or artisanal occupations for their livelihood or who belonged to a ​‘rentier’ class. The lower opportunity cost of time for these children and the probability of getting a job in the colonial administration enabled this small section of society to opt for such a liberal schooling. It is in this context that Gandhi wanted to use work (or agricultural and artisanal skills) as a pedagogical tool for education. However, the majority of children who were bound to do such work then did not view formal schooling, which aimed at imparting these ​‘skills’, attractive.

Volume 5 Issue 3:

Volume 5 Issue 2: 

In ​‘Interactions’ & ​‘Emerging Trends in Biology’, explore articles on chemical ecology, the common cold, fundamental forces, gut microbes in health & disease, & memory. In ​‘The Science Lab’, discover simple classroom activities to teach photosynthesis & daytime astronomy. In ​‘Annals of History’, trace the journey of microscopy from the simple magnifying glass to the powerful electron microscopes & easy-to-assemble foldscopes available today. Discover the writer & physician Oliver Sacks through his fascination for the human brain, bikes and stories in ​‘Biography of a Scientist’. Enjoy our pull-out poster on ​‘Ten things you didn’t know about – Bones’ & nature-based activity sheets – ​‘Chirp Chirp’, ​‘Hibiscus Tales’, ​‘Bark Bites’ & ​‘All about Ants’! Or browse through our pocket-size pictorial guide to common butterflies!

Malnutrition levels in India remain a major public health challenge. According to the fourth round of the District Level Household Survey (DLHS‑4, 2012 – 13), almost 30 percent of all children under the age of 5 are underweight in most states. This is a serious cause for concern for several reasons: low weight-for-age has been associated with a range of disadvantages, including a higher risk of dying due to several disease conditions among young children; changes in the autonomic nervous system; higher risk of hypertension and insulinresistance in adulthood; adverse impacts on brain development, cognitive ability and school achievement; and behavioural problems such as anxiety and hostility later in life.

Volume 5 Issue 1:

Urban spaces emerging as nodes and drivers of global capital are recognized as centres of economic growth; while the rest of the geography is consigned to the residual category commonly referred to as ​‘rural’. Diversity and increasing numbers of urban centres do not seem to alter this dichotomous perception of urban-rural landscapes and this dichotomy extends to policies and institutions. Nevertheless, the diversity in expansion and extraction pattern of the urban core is reflected in the way it transforms and interacts with its peripheries, fostering types of interfaces that depict urban and rural characteristics and processes to various extents.

The theme of public education is one that affects every society across the globe. All over, there has been fundamental dissatisfaction with the systems, though the idea itself is intimately linked with a democratic society: one in which the individual is taught her place in the larger society. In India there has been disaffection with both public and private schooling, especially in urban centres, where private schooling flourishes at exorbitant cost, many times with inadequate space, facilities and less than adequate teaching. Every single person in the country is crucially involved in what form education takes, since it matters to us what the future of our society is going to be. It reveals too the tremendous hope that we all have that there are solutions, elusive perhaps, but they exist and it is for us, and others who follow, to find these solutions. This hope is all the more attenuated when we hear stories, as we do, of our public schools in the remotest of places, where teachers are doing a wonderful job, coming to school braving the weather, working under very challenging circumstances, their enthusiasm unabated.

Volume 4 Issue 3: Two themes dominate this issue of AtRiA: Archimedes & Magic Squares — an unlikely combination! Both are exceedingly rich topics to write about, with histories that go far back in time. Who can’t be both charmed and thrilled by the story of Archimedes?

Explore ​‘Inter-disciplinary Science’ with 5 articles that connect knowledge, methods, & perspectives from across the natural sciences. Trace the exciting history of familiar science concepts in ​‘Serendipity’ & ​‘Annals of History’. Enjoy reading about the quirky & brilliant J.B.S Haldane in ​‘Biography of a Scientist’. Re-discover the wonders of the world within us (Macrophages) & in outer space (Mars Orbiter Mission) in our section ​‘In here/​Out there’. Prepare to be surprised by the colourful life of the humble fly in the section on ​‘Nature in your Backyard’. Check out our ​‘Science Online’ section for a step-by-step introduction to an open access software tool for understanding Time. Also enjoy our pull-out posters on ​‘Experiments with Water’ & ​‘Ten things you didn’t know about – Blood’!

Volume 4 Issue 2:

The starting point of this Issue is Mahatma Gandhi’s Nai Talim which he envisaged over many years and made available in 1937. Children learn by making and doing, and it is by relating these two to the larger context that the understanding of the whole picture emerges. It is this larger picture that this issue has attempted to present. This issue also explores the relevance of Nai Talim in the India of today. The explorations are on the idea of Nai Talim and the overall visions of a ​‘good society’, rethinking Nai Talim in the light of the NCF of 2005, as well as in the present context.

Volume 4 Issue 1: The lead feature in the March 2015 issue of AtRiA is based on the theme Proof Without Words. In the Review section, Mark Kleiner discusses Edward Frenkel’s Love and Math — the Heart of Hidden Reality. Thomas Lingefjard, in his article Learning Math with a DGE system, addresses a pressing need of teachers using technology in the classroom. This issue features a new author Ali Hussen whose article weaves in algebra, geometry and arithmetic. It also introduces a new series on Low Floor High Ceiling activities.The pullout continues on the Teaching of Geometry (part ii).

Volume 3 Issue 3:

Learning Curve decided to devote this issue to Inclusive Education as a theme. In this issue, readers will find articles on literature for children particularly emphasizing inclusion, on gender stereotyping and an article on RTE and inclusion in schooling, among others. The issue also has an article on teaching language to include, caste as a barrier to education and upward social mobility and, finally, teacher preparedness in curriculum development.

Volume 3 Issue 2:

This issue of the Learning Curve focuses on one of the most important periods in any individual’s life — early childhood. Whatever differences there may be on any other aspect of education, this is one area on which everyone agrees: that the years between birth and eight are the most significant and can make or break a life. So universal is this that it is equally true in all cultures. You will find focus articles by some of the most well-known and much respected educationists in the country, followed by very practical and hands-on approaches to Early Childhood Education (ECE).

Volume 3 Issue 1:

The dictionary defines the word ​“enable” as, to make able, to give power, means or ability; to make competent, authorise, to make possible or easy. The word ​“enabling” when used as an indicator in school education can be defined as a comprehensive, multi-faceted series of empowering activities required to address the needs of youngsters facing barriers in the acquisition of both academic and life skills. In this Issue, we have tried to bring together articles recounting the experiences of practicing teachers, educators and students across India even one from a school at an altitude of 12,000 feet from distant Leh! — who have all been part of this process. We have articles that enlarge on the theme of empowerment through responsible citizenry by involving the community in the process, of methods used to facilitate collaborative learning by getting students and teachers to jointly examine their problems and concerns, of attitudinal changes enabled through dialogue.

Volume 2 Issue 3:

In this issue, we have a range of articles recounting personal experiences of teaching with the goal of inclusive learning rather than a random attempt at throwing information at a mixed ability group, only some of whom could lick the system with others falling by the wayside. Readers will find that diverse aspects of assessment have been thoughtfully tried and objectivity is a key theme. Another important aspect of assessment, namely, reflectively constructed rubrics have been given a place in this issue.

Volume 2 Issue 2: