Magazine containing lewd jokes distributed in Guj schools

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Gujarat government on Friday said that it had blacklisted a publishing firm for supplying a magazine to 35,000 government schools in the state, which contained lewd jokes.

The May 2012 issue of Puzzle Magic magazine distributed to all the schools of the state contained four pages of lewd jokes.

"The magazine is distributed in the schools under the 'Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan' to develop reading habits of children, to improve their general knowledge and to increase interest in subjects like science and maths," Gujarat Minister of State for Education Raman Vora said.

The state Education Department had given the work order to Amisha Printers and Publishers to publish the magazine, he said adding the printer had sub-contracted the work to Golibar Publications, which had printed and supplied the magazine to all the schools.

The government had issued a notice to the firm for distributing the magazine without the state government's clearance.

"The magazine was supplied violating the contract of work order, which said that the publishers will get the content of the magazine passed by the 'Sarva Siksha Abhiyan' officials. They did not do that and posted the magazine on May 19 to all the schools," Vora said.

"When we came to know about it, we ordered to get back all the copies, canceled the work order of the publisher and blacklisted them," Vora further said.

Taking up the issue, the opposition Congress slammed the government and demanded immediate action against those responsible for the incident.

"Such a magazine will have a deep impact on the minds of children as it contained jokes which cannot be published (even) in 'c' grade magazines," Congress spokesperson Manish Doshi said.