‘Blatantly misogynist’ passage dropped from Indian board exam question after Sonia Gandhi flags it

India's Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) today dropped a passage from its class 10 board exam question paper soon after Congress President Sonia Gandhi termed it "blatantly misogynist" and asked the Education Ministry to apologise.

Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha today, Sonia demanded a review of the gender sensitivity standard in CBSE curriculum as she flagged the contentious passage from a question paper of a class 10 exam last week, reports our New Delhi correspondent.

Quoting from the passage, Sonia told the Lok Sabha that "this contains atrocious statements such as 'women gaining independence is the main reason' for a wide variety of social and family problems."

She further quoted a passage that said, "Wives stopped obeying their husbands is the main reason why children and servants are indisciplined" and stressed on the words "children" and "servants" as she spoke.

Soon afterwards, CBSE issued a statement saying the question has been drooped because it was "not in accordance with the guidelines of the board."

"The matter was referred to a committee of subject experts. As per their recommendations, it's been decided to drop the passage no. 1 and its accompanying questions of the question paper series JSK/1. Full marks will be awarded for this passage to all students concerned," said CBSE controller examination Sanyam Bhardwaj.

Sonia said there was a "nationwide outrage regarding a shockingly regressive passage" in the comprehension section of a CBSE exam held on December 11.

"The entire passage is riddled with such condemnable ideas and the questions that follow are equally nonsensical," she said.