Periodic table and evolution dropped for Indian teenagers
More than 4,500 Indian teachers and scientists have signed a letter protesting the removal of evolution, the periodic table of the elements, energy sources and water and air pollution from secondary school textbooks. At least 134 million 11-to-18 year-olds are affected by the changes to texts published for the start of the Indian school year this month. Unlike, for example, Texas, India has not hitherto been known for the politicisation or censorship of textbooks, and experts are baffled. “Everything related to water, air pollution, resource management has been removed,” one Mumbai science teacher tells Nature. Chapters on democracy and diversity have also been removed from non-science textbooks. The worry is that Hindu nationalists aligned with the Modi regime are branching out into mass indoctrination by omission.
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