Durgapur (West Bengal): Union Minister of State for Education Dr Subhas Sarkar claimed that Indian culture has proof of the equivalence of mass and energy much before Albert Einstein came up with his relativity theory, triggering controversy in the academic circle. Also, allegations of saffronisation of education has been leveled against the BJP MP.
Speaking at the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, Sarkar said, "Einstein presented the equation "E=mc^2" but the concept of matter-energy equivalence was told in our culture much before". The formula that was discovered in 1905 means that energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. But, India has said this long before, he added.
Refuting allegations of saffronisation of education he said that education had been driven on the wrong path earlier. He complained that words have been changed at the whims of a few people in an attempt to impose a different culture forcefully. "Science is present in our Indian culture and we need to know it. This is not saffronisation," he said.
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Further, Sarkar said that zero was discovered in India by Aryabhatta. "Zero was invented in India by a great mathematician. So why not discard zero saying it is saffronisation? Can you do so? Even the value of pi and many mathematical formulae were invented by Indian mathematicians. Can one discard all these saying it would not be accepted since it is saffronisation?" he asked.
Earlier, the BJP MP had courted controversy with his remarks that Rabindranath Tagore's mother and many others in the family did not carry him in their arms when he was a child as his complexion was not so fair.
