'Invisible planes in 4th century India, rockets of Krishna's grandson': What states want in NCERT books

The submissions have been made by state focus groups, comprising academic experts, teachers and professors, and are important as the Centre is following a bottom-up approach in developing the textbooks,according to official NCERT guidelines...

The states focus group also claimed that historians say the rocket was invented by India, Krishnas [character in the epicMahabharat, worshipped as a deity] grandson had ammunition rockets, [astrologer-astronomer] Varahamihira made predictions about earthquakes in the 5th Century which show the greatness of the Indians...

Among the states that recommended that students be taught that philosopher and sage Kanada came up with the atomic theory much before English chemist John Dalton are UP, Jharkhand, and Haryana, which also proposed that textbooks, while dealing with Isaac Newtons Laws of Gravity, may mention that Acharya Kanada had written in Vaisheshika Sutra (an ancient Sanskrit text) about the law of motion...

While many of these states highlighted the ancient Gurukul system of imparting education that prevailed in ancient India in their position papers on Indian Knowledge System, Nagaland, where BJP is part of the state government, pushed back, pointing out that women were not admitted to the Gurukuls..

It has confined the spiritual and yogic canons to various Mathas and small groups of practitioners The caste system in the present time has become a social bane and a burden for the developing nation, the Bihar focus group said.. Karnataka also made strong observations in its submission, which was prepared by a focus group constituted by the states previous BJP government, stating that education systems at the state as well as central levels have in the garb of secularisation systematically ushered our impressionable minds into the zone of rootlessness and ignorance of the achievements by their very own ancestors...

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