Daijiworld Media Network - Bengaluru (SP)

Bengaluru, Dec 30: A manual of instructions issued to government officials as part of National Population Register (NPR) has given rise to controversy.

Many have pointed out that in the information on holidays for which the officials are eligible, certain holidays have not been mentioned. Particularly mention about certain Muslim festivals have not been made even though Ayyappa festival, Ram Navami and Christmas are included in the list. Festivals like Id-ul-Fitr (Ramzan) and Bakrid are not mentioned in the list, it has been pointed out.

The reason behind the same has been mentioned that the festivals are mentioned in the NPR instruction manual to help guess the month of birth of person if someone remembers the year of birth but cannot recall the month. If the person or the family can tell that such a person was born near such a festival, the enumerator can use the corresponding month in Gregorian calendar to record the same as the month of birth. For this reason, two months are mentioned against several festivals, as those Indian festivals took place in either of the two months.

Islamic festivals take place according to Islamic lunar calendar, and their corresponding month in the Gregorian calendar changes every year. As the Muslim festivals do not take place in a particular month in the Gregorian calendar, they do not help in identifying the month of birth of a person. And hence, Muslim festivals are not mentioned because they do not serve a specific purpose in the NPR exercise like the other festivals mentioned in the list do.

At the same time it is said that the list of Jayantis provided by the government does not have information about Ambedkar Jayanti which has angered a number of people.