New Delhi:
Piyush Goyal, the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, has admitted that the Albert Einstein gaffe was a slip of tongue. The statement comes a day after Goyal issued a clarification over the faux paus. Speaking at a meeting of the Board of Trade, Goyal had said that one should not get into the maths as it didn’t help Albert Einstein to discover gravity. People were quick to grab the goof-up and made fun of the minister as the gravity was discovered by Isaac Newton and not Einstein. Later, after the issue snowballed into massive online controversy, Goyal issued a statement. “The comment that I made had a certain context. Unfortunately some friends have sought to remove the context, pickup one line and create a very mischievous narrative,” Goyal said.
"Do not get into the calculations that you see on television...Oh if you are looking at USD 5 trillion economy, the country will have to grow at 12 per cent, today it is growing at 6-7 per cent…. This maths did not help Einstein discover gravity..…" he said while wrongly attributing the discovery of gravity to renowned scientist Einstein, who gave the theory of relativity.
This has come just two days after his colleague and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman blamed millennials and not government policies for the unprecedented slump in auto industry. Some users even linked the remarks of Sitharaman and Goyal.
The Opposition Congress also quipped on his remarks and said: "Former Finance Minister Piyush Goyal is correct, Einstein did not require maths to discover gravity, but Sir Isaac Newton did. FYI, maths is also required to #FixTheEconomy."
After facing intense mocking, the minister came out with a clarification and said that his remark was taken out of the context. He also shared his exact qoute but this time, thankfully some would say, he removed the Einstein claim.
