Bengaluru, May 18: Following the controversy over inclusion of RSS founder Keshav Baliram Hedgewar's speech in school textbooks, senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Wednesday urged Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai to immediately stop the printing of the textbooks and to take decision in this regard after discussions with intellectuals and educational experts.

According to official sources, the speech by Hedgewar was included as chapter in the revised Kannada textbook for students of class X.

"If the media reports are true about the revised curriculum, then the issue is very serious. In order to avoid speculation and conflicts about the issue, @CMofKarnataka @BSBommai should give clarifications," Siddaramaiah tweeted.

He said when there are many renowned authors, writers, intellectuals and education experts in Karnataka, the BJP government in the State has chosen to insult the people there by delegating the work to an inexperienced youth from RSS.

"The government should withdraw the draft submitted by the current textbook revision committee and dissolve the committee. Appoint a new committee comprising education experts, intellectuals and eminent writers of Kannada," he added.

The Karnataka Textbook Society has said a committee headed by Rohith Chakrathirtha was constituted to examine social science and language textbooks and to revise them, and it has revised social science textbooks from classes 6 to 10 and Kannada language textbooks from classes 1 to 10.

Alleging that BJP has already destroyed the sanctity of the religion for political reasons, Siddaramaiah said, "Now, they are trying to politicise learning space to spoil the minds of innocent children for political gains. This is unfortunate and people should oppose this."

"Let BJP use Hedgewar, Golwalkar and Godse in their political rallies and ask votes by showing their portraits. People will evaluate what is right or wrong, and decide. But do not politicise education for selfish reasons," he added.

Primary and Secondary Education Minister B C Nagesh on Monday defended inclusion of a speech by Hedgewar in the Kannada textbook.

He had said the textbook does not contain anything about Hedgewar or RSS, but only his speech on what should be an inspiration to people, especially the youth, and added that those who have raised objections have not gone through the textbook.

Amid allegations in some quarters that a lesson on freedom fighter Bhagat Singh was omitted, the Textbook Society on Tuesday had clarified that the chapter has not been removed, and the Kannada textbook of Class 10 is currently at the printing stage.

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Batumi (Georgia), Jul 26 (PTI): Young Indian International Master Divya Deshmukh held her nerves to hold stalwart Koneru Humpy to a draw in game 1 of the FIDE Women's World Cup final, with both players having their share of opportunities to take the lead here on Saturday.

The draw with black means Humpy, the two-time World Rapid champion, holds a slight edge going in the second and final game under the classical chess rules in the two-game mini-match, and should the deadlock continue, games of shorter duration will be played to determine the winner.

Humpy employed the Queen's gambit accepted as black and it turned out to be a pretty fascinating game right out of the opening as Divya, 19, came up with a piece sacrifice early to deny the black king the right to castle.

Humpy was the first to err and, according to computers, Divya had things under control on the 14th move. However in her bid to recover the extra material, the Nagpur girl, who has secured a place in the Candidates tournament with her sterling performance here, missed a promising continuation.

What followed the exchange of all minor pieces and the ensuing queen and rook endgame gave enough counter play to both players. The game was eventually drawn after Humpy sacrificed her rook to force perpetual checks.

"The game saw an extremely sharp battle with the game ending in a draw in 41 moves. On move 7, Divya made her aggressive intentions clear by offering another pawn,

which looked like home preparation. Humpy made a practical decision of refraining from taking the pawn and a balanced position was reached by move 10 by white," said Grandmaster Pravin Thipsay, an Arjuna awardee and the first Indian to get a chess Grandmaster norm.

"However, instead of developing the undeveloped Knight, Humpy retreated the centralised Knight on move 10, giving huge positional advantage to Divya. Divya could have gained huge positional advantage on the 12th move by moving a rook. However, she chose to play for King side attack by sacrificing a piece instead.

"Humpy, too, erred at this stage and instead of moving the King to Queen side, moved it to the King side. Divya, on move 14, could have obtained a crushing attack by threatening a mate by developing her Queen. Instead she chose to exchange a pair of Bishops first, which enabled Humpy to defend her King by returning the piece," said Thipsay.

"Players thus reached a balanced Queen and two Rooks ending. Divya continued to play ambitiously and tried to attack Humpy’s King but the latter defended accurately and the game was drawn in 41 moves by perpetual check," he added.

In the play-off for the third place, Chinese players Zhongyi Tan, the former women's world champion and top seed Lei Tingjie also decided to split points out of a Queen’s gambit declined game.

The opening raised visions of a close contest between the two but having been knocked out of title race in the previous round, none of them wanted to take any huge risk. It was still a middle game when the players shook hands.

With the top two positions sealed for the Indians, the berth to the next Candidates is also assigned, while the player finishing third will also get an entry to the premier event scheduled for 2026.

Results: Divya Deshmukh (Ind) drew with Koneru Humpy (Ind); Zhongyi Tan (Chn) drew with Tingjie Lei (Chn).