The government on Friday appointed Dinesh Prasad Saklani, a historian who has written and spoken extensively on the various aspects of the Ramayana, as director of the National Council of Educational Research and Training which prepares school curricula and textbooks.
Saklani, 59, is a history professor at the Hemvati Nandan Bahuguna Garhwal University, a central university in Uttarakhand.
Major changes to the curricula and textbooks are expected during Saklani’s five-year tenure as NCERT head, with the government having set up an expert committee to draw up a National Curriculum Framework, the guiding document for the preparation of textbooks. The last NCF was released in 2005, with the books prepared between 2006 and 2008.
“My priority will be to implement the National Education Policy. I shall work to energise the NCERT in preparing new textbooks and syllabuses,” Saklani said.
According to Saklani’s profile on the Uttarakhand varsity’s website, he delivered a lecture in August 2018 on Indian knowledge traditions at a national seminar organised by the Gujarat Technical University, Ahmedabad, in collaboration with the Prajna Pravah – an organisation with RSS links that promotes traditional Indian knowledge.
He has worked on a German Research Foundation-supported project, “Tantrik Text Practices: A comparative ethnography of ‘Tantra’ in South and Southeast Asia”.
Saklani has written books on the Ramayana Tradition in Historical Perspective, Vedic Environment, Ramayana Tradition in Global Perspective, and History of Traditional Healthcare System in Uttarakhand.
He spoke on “dancing cattle in high Himalayan society” at the department of South East Asia studies, Northern Illinois University in September 2010; and delivered two public lectures on the “Ramayana tradition in Central Himalaya” and “Ritual healing in Garhwal Himalaya” at the South Asia Institute, Heidelberg University, Germany, in June and July 2005.
A department of school education order said the cabinet appointments committee had approved Saklani’s appointment as NCERT director for five years or until he attained the age of 65, whichever was earlier.
