Holiday list in NPR manual courts controversy

Team Udayavani, Dec 30, 2019, 6:03 PM IST

Bengaluru: An instructions booklet issued to officials for the upcoming National Population Register has led to stoking of a new controversy about the already controversial programme.

The instructions mention certain holidays and have omitted a few in a reference mechanism to be adopted while enlisting people onto the register.

The instructions provide that if a person does not know his or her birth date then their family can state or guess the festival or public holiday which was immediately before or after the person’s birth to identify the month they were born in. The instructions provide a list of such festivals and public holidays and the month in the Gregorian calendar in which they usually come. Here’s a sample:

The controversy is that the list provides only Hindu festivals along with the public holidays for reference and omits festivals of other religions. One reason been given out is that unlike Hindu festivals, Islamic festivals change their corresponding Gregorian month every year hence they will not be very helpful in identifying the birth month of a person.

Additionally, the list has also omitted official Jayantis (birthdays of public figures) of many former political personalities which too has angered some people.