Pythagoras still in syllabus: Smriti Irani

New Delhi: Union Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani on Thursday denied that the names of historic Western intellectuals like Nicolaus Copernicus and Pythagoras had been removed from school text books. She informed Parliament in a written reply that reports on the issue as “factually incorrect” and clarified that there was no proposal under consideration for “cleansing” the text books from foreign influence.

“There were newspaper reports in February 2016 about new Rajasthan textbooks having dropped Western writers. However, the state government has denied this and stated that on the contrary, there are certain chapters where the western intellectuals find expression in the new textbooks,” Irani said in a written reply.