An Indian minister has come under fire after he urged people not to consider maths while talking about the economy as ‘maths has never helped Einstein discover gravity’.
India’s Minister of Railways and Commerce, Mr Piyush Goyal was questioned about India’s aim to become a five trillion economy in five years with the current slow growth of rate, by the reporters, at a Board of Trade meeting in New Delhi.
In a video, which has now gone viral, Minister Goyal urged people to not consider maths while talking about the economy and said ‘maths never helped Einstein discover gravity’.
“Don’t go by all these calculations you see on TV, that if the country has to become a [USD] 5 trillion economy, it will have to grow at 12 per cent but today it is growing at 6-7 per cent. Don’t get into those maths. Those maths have never helped Einstein discover gravity,” Goyal said.
“If you'd only gone by structured formulae and what was past knowledge, I don't think there would have been any innovation in this world," he added.
It was not Einstein but Newton who discovered gravity.
Minister’s remarks became a talking point on social media with several mocking his ignorance.
'Mischievous narrative'
The minister called the criticism a 'mischievous narrative'.
"The comment that I made had a certain context. Unfortunately, some friends have sought to remove the context, pick up one line and create a very mischievous narrative," the Minister later clarified to NDTV.
However, he did not clarify why he had said that Albert Einstein discovered gravity instead of Isaac Newton.
This comes right after India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, earlier this week, said that the auto sector slowdown was because of millennials who were choosing ridesharing services like ‘Uber and Ola’ over buying cars.
Tune into SBS Hindi at 5 pm every day and follow us on Facebook and Twitter
