More than half a million Indians revising for a new Cow Science Exam, testing students on how indigenous animals produce gold in their milk and on the medicinal powers of their dung and urine, have been left frustrated after the government postponed the test amid ridicule from academics.
The one-hour online paper was to be the first exam of a new curriculum advanced by India’s Hindu nationalist government. Yet after complaints from universities that the exam, scheduled for Thursday, promoted unscientific hearsay, it has now been postponed for “administrative reasons”.
Hindus believe the cow to be sacred but hardliners have gone further, insisting that the animals in India possess extraordinary medicinal and scientific powers. Those beliefs have gained ground since Narendra Modi, the prime
