FOR a novice politician from one of India’s smallest and most remote states, Biblap Deb has made a big name for himself. Since assuming the leadership of Tripura (population 4m) in March, Mr Deb—who belongs to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party—has so often hit national headlines that journalists now hang on his every word. Alas this is not because of bold new policies, but rather the silly things he says.
Earlier this month Mr Deb told some computer trainees they should be proud that Indians invented high-tech communications “lakhs of years ago“ (a lakh is 100,000). Drawing on a passage in the Mahabharata, an ancient Hindu epic, he asked how Sanjaya the charioteer could have relayed a blow-by-blow account of the progress of the battle of Kurukshetra to his master, the blind King Dhritarashtra, without internet and satellite links (the scene is pictured).
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