Obbana Rajah
Hilarity ensued when Biplab Deb, an Indian minister claimed that the Internet was invented thousands of years ago by ancient Indians.
Biplab Deb, the chief minister of the north-eastern state of Tripura, made the comments at a public function on Tuesday.
He is part of the trend where Indian ministers explain how many modern-day inventions were actually in-use centuries ago. One such example is the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, who in 2014, told doctors and medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that cosmetic surgery existed in ancient India. Last September, junior education minister Satyapal Singh claimed that the aeroplanes were mentioned in the ancient Hindu epic Ramayana.
Twitter users had a field day with this.
And, if Minister Biplab Deb was not bad enough, Tripura’s Governor Tathagata Roy showed his support for the chief minister’s statements.
He tweeted, “Tripura Chief Minister’s observations about the happenings of the Puranic period are topical. It is virtually impossible to conceive of devices like ‘Divya drishti’, Pushpaka Ratha’, etc without some kind of prototype and study thereon”.
obbana@theindependent.sg