Chronicling change in India's landscape | Reading the land

You might say that this is the right time to read a book like Arati Kumar-Rao’s Marginlands, as our forest regulations are being diluted, our hillsides are collapsing under the weight of rain and greed, and our coasts are crumbling into the sea. But the misguided policies arising from the misreading of landscapes began centuries ago. And as long as an official sees a mountain and calculates how many cubic metres of granite can be mined from it, or looks at a riverbed and plans to build a runway there, those misguided policies will live on.