Just saw a video, apparently promoted by the govt, that talks about the 24,000-year-old civilization of India. 24,000 years ago, the world was in the grip of a glacial period, and all modern humans everywhere were hunter-gatherers.

The very word 'civilization' comes from 'civitas' (city) and presupposes the existence of urban centres. The earliest examples of cities anywhere in the world is around 5,500-6,000 years ago.

Cities or urban centres presuppose agriculture - without the surplus that settled agriculture provides, no one can build cities. And the earliest evidence for agriculture appears only after the last glacial age ends & the world begins warming up sustainably, ~12,000 years ago!

These are not controversial or new statements. These are settled matters on which historians and archaeologists everywhere in the world agree, based on the evidence from multiple disciplines, from archaeology to paleoclimatology.

It is troubling to see organs of the Indian govt promoting unscientific & unsupported claims that would be laughed out of court in any academic gathering. This has implications for our future because disregard for scientific evidence can be a serious deterrent to progress.

In normal times, one could have ignored this because one can assume facts prevailing over imagination ultimately. But we are not in normal times. We are in abnormal times, when the estabishment has proved it can sell any imaginative story with the help of editors in mass media.