Milestones achieved during the regime of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be included in school textbooks in Rajasthan from the next academic session, state education minister Vasudev Devnani said on Thursday, Aug 23.
Mr Devnani has written to the Rajasthan Board of Secondary Education in Ajmer to start the process of checking the contents and highlighting them in school textbooks.
"Major transformation and achievements during the tenure of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee will be highlighted in school textbooks. I have given the directions to the Board to initiate the process to get the things done," Devnani said.
"Students should know about his great and influential leadership during Kargil war, nuclear tests in Pokhran in Jaisalmer and unforgettable contribution to the country through programmes like the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan and the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana, among others, which took the country on the path of development," he said.
The directions were given on August 18 and a committee of experts will take up the task.
Apart from highlighting the achievements of Vajpayee, who died on August 16, the minister is also considering making available the biography of Vajpayee in some libraries at every district.
In Rajasthan, several changes in the school curriculum have been made and many personalities, including Rajput king Maharana Pratap, were included in the last four years.
Vajpayee, the 93-year-old BJP leader, was the oldest living former Indian prime minister. A founding member of the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, a precursor of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and a parliamentarian for four decades, he is the first non-Congress leader to have completed a five-year term (1999-2004) as India's prime minister.
(With inputs from PTI)
