Naga writer Temsula Ao, Assamese author Mitra Phukan featured in new NCERT Class 9 English textbook

Works by writers from the Northeast, including Temsula Ao and Mitra Phukan, have been included in the new Class 9 English textbook introduced by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT).
The new textbook, titled “Kaveri”, features texts by several Indian authors such as Subramania Bharati, Sudha Murty, Temsula Ao, Mitra Phukan and Rabindranath Tagore.
Prepared in line with the National Curriculum Framework for School Education (NCF-SE) 2023, the book will replace the earlier Class 9 English textbooks “Beehive” and “Moments”, which were used in schools from the 2006–07 to 2025–26 academic sessions.
Officials said the new syllabus has been streamlined, with the number of textbooks reduced from two to one and the total number of texts cut from 29 to 16.
Of these, eight are written by Indian authors while six are by foreign writers, including American poet David Roth, English poet Charles Swain, American children’s writer Bryanna T Perkins, poet Robert Langley, writer Maya Anthony and Singapore-based author Irene Chua.
The new book opens with a story from the 2004 collection “How I Taught My Grandmother to Read and Other Stories” by Sudha Murty.
NCERT officials said the textbook also incorporates elements of Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS) as part of the revised curriculum framework.
Apart from literary texts, the book includes an anonymous poem titled “Gifts of Grace: Honouring Our Vocations” and an interview-based piece, “The World of Limitless Possibilities,” featuring Paralympic athlete Deepa Malik.