India: School textbooks say 'Japan nuked US'

Parents and students in India's western state of Gujarat are up in arms over school textbooks full of glaring errors, it's been reported.

The textbook makes statements such as: "Japan dropped a nuclear bomb on the US during World War II," and "Proportion of poisonous gas CO3 has increased due to cutting of trees," as well as "Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated on October 30, 1948."

It has more than 120 factual, spelling and grammatical mistakes, Indian network NDTV reports. In fact, carbon trioxide is not normally found in nature, and India's independence leader was killed on 30 January 1948.

Gujarat's Standard 8 social science textbook - which is reportedly being used by more than 50,000 students - is said to be particularly bad. The Gujarat government has ordered a probe, but not yet withdrawn the books.

"We have set up a two-member committee to look into these errors and make changes immediately," State Education Minister Bhupendrasinh Chudasama said in a statement.

But for some, this is too little, too late. "This clearly is the reflection of the competency of the writers of the book... there should have been some semblance of sensibility while clearing the draft of these books," Nirav Thakkar, the principal of a school in Gujarat's largest city Ahmedabad, told NDTV.

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