An American friend of mine once asked me a pertinent question - why the Indian Standard Time is 10 and 1/2 hours ahead of Eastern Daylight Time of USA. Why not 10 or 11 hours. The answer is 82 1/2 longitudes bifurcates India vertically and is exactly 5 1/2 hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time). Yet, it rekindled a thought in me, that ideally India should have two Time Zones.
Per a recent report, the state of Assam wants to have it's own time zone, 30 minutes ahead of Indian Standard Time. It makes sense. We should have one IWST (Indian Western Time Zone) being 5 hours and IEST (Indian Eastern Time Zone), being 6 hours ahead of GMT. Now sun rises in North-East at 5 AM and doesn't rise in Mumbai until 7 AM. Switching to two time zones will get rid of this discrepancy.
We earned our independence from British, but still dependent on some their archaic remnants, even 69 years after they left us. To gain complete freedom, we must get rid of many such nonsense legacies, which includes many outdates laws. The sooner we do, the better would be for us, starting with changing the time zone, which is the least we can and should do.
Yes. Why not? We have so much of diversity, one more is not going to cause much problem.
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