– Mita Mukherjee
The NCERT has come under criticism as its Class IV mathematics text book contains several inaccurate information, the most glaring being an illustration showing a two-horned African rhinoceros while describing the one-horned Indian rhinoceros.
Dr. Bibhab Kumar Talukdar, Secretary general and CEO of Aaranyak, a renowned rhino conservation biologist working on three species of Asian Rhinos for more than two decades, said that the misinformation published by the NCERT is worrying and the mistake needs to be rectified immediately.
“The misinformation on greater one- horned rhino published by NCERT is very worrying. Greater one-horned itself reflects it is a one-horned rhino and by putting two- horned African rhino in the book has raised eyebrows on the quality check efforts at NCERT,” Talukdar told EducationWorld.
Criticizing the NCERT for providing the wrong information, an X user, Udoy Bhaskar Borah, posted: “In the recently published NCERT Class 4 Math textbook, an Indian rhino is shown to have two horns (Pg 45). Such mistakes are not acceptable in an NCERT textbook.”
The textbook says: “The Indian rhinoceros is found in the foothills of the Himalayas in Northeast India. Floods and medicinal value of their horns have led to a reduction in their population. In the early 1900s, their population was driven to near extinction with as little as 200 rhinoceroses. But with recent conservation measures, there are now around 4000 rhinoceroses.”
According to Talukdar, there are at least three inaccuracies in the description.
First he said, “One-horned rhinos are also found in the plain ecosystem of Brahmaputra valley in Assam, besides foothills of Eastern Himalayas..”
Second he said: “ The book also mentions rhino horn has medicinal value and this would provoke many people to use rhino horn for medicinal purposes. This may trigger more rhino poaching.”
Third, Talukdar pointed out that floods as described in the text is not a reason for decline in rhino populations.
“ I would like to remind the author and NCERT that flood in Assam is a natural phenomenon and very much essential for the floodplain ecosystem. We have witnessed floods in Assam since the 1950s and never in the history of Assam, flood has not at any point contributed towards decline in the rhino population. For example in 1966, Kaziranga had about 366 rhinos and since then many high floods hit Kaziranga, but the rhino population has increased to about 2613 at present. Such wrong information provided, that too in a book published by NCERT, reflects whom NCERT engages to write books which is very much worrying. The information should be withdrawn immediately,” Talukdar said.
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