The Himachal Pradesh Board of School Education has announced that it will issue a corrigendum to correct an error in a Class 6 textbook, where the district name 'Kinnaur' was mistakenly translated as 'transgender' in the English version. The error appeared in the textbook 'Folk Culture of Himachal and Yoga', while the Hindi version correctly used the name 'Kinnaur'. Board officials suspect the mistake occurred during translation from Hindi to English, possibly due to the use of an AI tool that confused 'Kinnaur' with 'Kinner', a term sometimes used for transgender individuals. However, board secretary Vishal Sharma stated that the exact cause remains unclear. 'We had assigned the translation to a subject expert. We do not know if AI was involved or if it was a manual error,' Sharma said. He confirmed that a corrigendum will be issued shortly, clarifying that 'transgender' should be read as 'Kinnaur', and the correction will be incorporated in the next print run. 'We publish over one crore books annually. Recalling such a large volume is not feasible,' he added. The board has blacklisted the expert responsible and engaged another to review textbooks for similar errors. This incident has revived past sensitivities around the term 'Kinner'. In 2007, the use of the word in the film 'Traffic Signal' sparked protests in Kinnaur, leading to then Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh condemning it and the film being banned in the state.
