Arunachal in China, according to Maharashtra textbook!

New Delhi, July 26: The

legislature took serious note Thursday of the manner in which national geography was "changed" in a Class 10 textbook published by a state-owned bureau.

In a major embarrassment, India's strategic northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh was omitted from the India map in the Class 10 textbook printed by the Pune-based state-owned Balbharti Bureau of Textbook Production.

Adding insult to injury, the Indian state has been shown as part of China.

School Education Minister Rajendra Darda termed the omission of Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh from the India map in the Class 10 geography textbook a "serious lapse".

A Bharatiya Janata Party senior legislator Sudhir Mungantiwar raised the issue in the house Thursday and demanded to know what action the government had taken in the matter.

"This is a serious lapse. We are told that the error occurred in only one of the nine maps in the textbook, due to technical reasons," Darda said.

He assured the house that in order to prevent such gaffes in future, a new textbook subject experts' panel would be appointed within six weeks.

To a demand for pinning accountability and lodging a police case, Darda said a first information report (FIR) would be filed in the matter soon.

Mungantiwar demanded that the culprits responsible for the lapse be charged with "treason" to which Darda replied that the law and judiciary department of the state government would examine the matter.

The textbook is used by over 1.50 million students all over the state in schools affiliated to the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Examinations (MSBSHSE). The government has sought a reply from the MSBSHSE chairman on the issue.

Incidentally, another gaffe that was exposed in May last related to the omission of the name of Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar in a list of prominent leaders from the state in the History textbook for Class 10.

IANS