Hegde makes absurd claim: Indian first to fly plane

BENGALURU: Wright Brothers not the first to fly a plane? It wasn’t in the American town of Kitty Hawk but in Chowpatty, in our own backyard, where the first ever human took flight? Really?

Union minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship Ananthkumar Hegde certainly thinks so.

The minister, in the news for a series of incendiary remarks with an eye on the upcoming Assembly elections in the state, told an audience of aeronautics experts on Friday, “Our history books say the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane in 1905. But much before that, in 1895, Mr Shivkar Talpade, tried and flew his own plane for one-and-a-half-hours at Chowpatty, Mumbai. Unfortunately, everyone’s forgotten that.”

Rewriting the record books, are we, Mr Hegde?