Pune: On Tuesday, Dharmendra Pradhan, the minister of education for the Union, tried to calm people's anxieties that the theory of evolution popularised by Charles Darwin had been "deleted" from NCERT textbooks by saying that "nothing of this sort has happened." At the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, where he was giving a talk, he made these remarks.
He remarked, "I would like to state here publicly that nothing of this sort has happened, that Darwin's theory of evolution has been removed from science books by the NCERT, and that the periodic table has been left out."
Pradhan stated that he had contacted the autonomous National Council for Educational Research and Training (NCERT) for more information once the controversy had arisen.—Inputs from Agence