BENGALURU: The state government clarified on Thursday that it will not roll back the revised textbooks but added that there were seven to eight mistakes during revison which will be rectified and sent to schools.
Addressing a press conference, Revenue Minister R Ashok alleged that when the Congress was in power in Karnataka, the textbooks had over 150 mistakes, including grammatical errors and they did not go for reprinting but instead additional sheets were issued after corrections.
“Ours has seven to eight mistakes which we’ll rectify and issue in the next 10 days’’ he said. Some of the corrections include addition of ‘Samvidhana Shilpi’ title (architect of the Constitution) to Dr BR Ambedkar, more details on Puranadara Dasaru and Kanakadasaru in Class 9 textbook, change of poet’s name in the Class 7 textbook and inclusion of Siddaganga Mutt’s contributions to the chapter on development of Karnataka.
Interestingly, the press conference called by Minister Ashok to convey the government’s decision was attended by PWD Minister C C Patil, Minister of Labour Department Shivaram Hebbar and Urban Development Minister Byrathi Basavaraj.
Shivakumar has insulted Kempegowda, says Ashoka
Primary and Secondary Education Minister B C Nagesh was not present. Defending Nagesh’s absence, Ashoka said he has already conducted ten press conferences. “Also, we are replying on behalf of the government’’ he said. Nagesh was present in Vidhana Soudha when the press meet was going on at a conference room in the same building.
Former PM HD Deve Gowda had written to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai asking the government to withdraw the revised textbooks. Ashoka said the CM will give a detailed response to the former PM on Friday. On the statements made by various seers including Adichunchungiri swamiji objecting to some of the contents, Ashoka said people who did not find their agenda in the textbooks, mislead the seers and the media by providing half information.
“Minister Nagesh has personally visited and convinced the swamiji. Not just him, he also visited and interacted with other seers,’’ he said. Ashok said the Congress government had not bothered to add a chapter on Nadaprabhu Kempegowda, founder of Bengaluru. “We added a chapter on him’’ he said. Slamming KPCC President DK Shivakumar who tore a textbook that had a lesson on Kempegowda, Ashoka said he has insulted Kempegowda.