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International columnist, political analyst and senior journalist Ahmed Mohiuddin Siddiqui’s articles are published across Asia, Africa and Europe. He writes for The Moroccan Times, The Tunis Times, India Tomorrow, Kohram News, The Etemaad Urdu Daily and for news papers published from Muscat, Sultanate of Oman. You can follow him on Twitter at: @journopolana[/symple_box]
Muscat, Sultanate of Oman—The Board of Professional Entrance Examinations (BOPEE) in the beautiful northern hill state of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in India has issued an admit card to a cow to take the entrance examination, an event scheduled on 10th May 2015. If the cow qualifies in the examination, she will be entitled to get a seat and study along with human beings!
The cow in question Kachir Gaw – Brown Cow is the daughter of Gura Dand (Red Bull) . The cow was allotted a seat at the Government Degree College, Bemina. Junaid Azim Mattu, the spokesman of a political party from Kashmir, as the National Conference brought this incident to light yesterday.
The ruling alliance government of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the anti-Muslim Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in J & K was embarrassed by the incident. The government has not expressed any regret over the incident but the opposition parties have taken the bull of controversy by its horns. Former Chief Minister of J & K and the working president of the National Conference, the main opposition in J & K Legislative Assembly (local Parliament) commented on the cow incident thus: ‘‘Brilliant. I wish Kachir Gaw had turned up for the examination.’’
What is appalling is that the admit card bears the signature of Farooq Ahmad Mir, the Controller of Examinations, who seems to have lost control of the system. Giving his side of the cow story, Farooq Ahmad said, ‘‘All the applications are now made online. There is an image recognition software which does not differentiate between a human face and an animal picture. Someone has played a prank. I do not sign the admit card in person. This is a system generated signature and comes by default.’’
The government of the scenic and beautiful Jammu and Kashmir has asked the BOPEE to take the record down from their website on Saturday morning.
Meanwhile, the BOPEE is filing a complaint against the prankster who turned India upside down, with the authorities currently in full swing to track down his IP address. It may be recalled that such incidents are not new to India. Government officials have been casual and careless in the past too. For the Unique Identification Project (UIP), some Indian citizens were shocked to find pictures of dogs and other animals on the identity cards issued to them by the Government of India.
India is a huge country with a population of 1.21 billion. Mistakes are bound to happen but should not be repeated again and again. BBC’s seasoned journalist Mark Tully, who covered India for more than 20 years had once famously remarked that India is a big chaos! Who can deny this with the animals stealing the limelight time and again? It is not just a mistake but a Himalayan blunder for this heavenly state abutting the Himalayas.
