BALASORE: At a time when public sentiment against Pakistan is high after 26/11 and its open defiance, this howler has come as an easy provocation. Unintentional and callous though, the Malhotra Book Depot (MBD), a leading publication house of Orissa, has a map of India without PoK (Pak-occupied Kashmir) in its Class X test paper. The publication house sometime ago had drawn flak for mentioning Netaji as a fake nationalist leader and later corrected itself.
Students and teachers have expressed their strong resentment over the publication of deformed map of the country and said the publication house has tried to create unnecessary confusion. ‘‘The altered map has been printed in page 65 of the test paper. In the map PoK portion has been omitted which is a shame on the sovereignty of the country,” remarked Laxmikanta Mohanty, a teacher. What is more concerning is, thousands of students refer to the test papers for the HSC examination. ‘‘In the textbooks, we have been studying, the original map of India clearly shows all states intact. But we are surprised to spot the new map of the country.
We are now confused as to which one is correct,’’ said Pratyush Nanda, a Class X student. Meanwhile, the local education community and several organisations have demanded action against the publication house for its mistake which, they say, is inexcusable. ‘‘We want the publication house to withdraw all its test papers from the market and immediate correction of the map before it is distributed once again. Besides, we request the government to initiate stringent action against the publisher as it has been repeating mistakes,’’ demanded Bhagaban Barik, coordinator of Balasore-Bhadrak Dharma Jagaran Samity. The publisher is not available for comments.