On 9th April, 2026, I was interviewed by the Thandhi TV. The video recording is attached.
At 7 minutes I start speaking in Tamil. For non- Tamils: The topic is about the Union Education Minister's suggestion to switch over to the Mahakaal Time zone at Ujjain for Bharat and for the world. I was asked if it would affect computing birth times and impact religious activities. I said it won't, because the birth chart is made for the local time and not IST even now. If we change to Ujjain time, which is 27 minutes behind, our IST will change and be used for civil purposes and general time keeping but in the case of Jyothisha, the birth time will be derived from the location, not from IST. For religious purposes like Ekadashi vrata, the panchangas in respective regions would give the time of start of the vrata in the local regions and won't follow IST even if it is changed to Ujjain. Let me share some info on what was not asked to me, for clarification to readers. Ujjain was chosen as prime meridian in those days because the imaginary axis connecting the north and the south pole as seen from Bharat passes through Ujjain and Lanka on the equator (which was not Ravana's Lanka). Since Ujjain was located on the Tropic of cancer 23.5° N of the equator, it offered a vantage point to observe the planets, the sun and the moon to derive their positions and also to calculate eclipse times. Only Jyothisha Siddhantas worked on this. It was taken as a rule book by others in the country to convert them into their locations based on their longitude and latitude. It helped in deriving tithi, nakshtra etc for each region. That's why we have almost 7000 panchangas in our country catering to each region. Bharat was self sufficient in those days in astronomy and astrology by having the observation point in Ujjain. The Allahabad longitude was chosen by the British because it was at the centre of Bharat. Bharat has an expanse of 30° between its eastern and western extremities. Therefore the mid- point at 15° was chosen which passed through Allahabad. Since 1° of the longitude is crossed by the sun in 4 minutes, there is a 2 hour difference between the eastern and western extremities. If Ujjain is chosen, it is closer to the western extremity ( in Gujarat) by 7° which makes the eastern end ( in Arunachal Pradesh) 23° away or 1 and a half hours away. Generally the meridian to determine the time is not chosen that way. The central one will be chosen. Moreover, in Jyothisha Siddhantas, Ujjain was chosen not to determine a central time (IST) for the entire Bharat. It was chosen to observe the sky and planets and calculate their positions. That was astrology based, not western astronomy based. Today we have advanced astronomy observatories at other locations of Bharat having locational advantages. Nowadays, NASA ephemeris and Swiss ephemeris are used to determine the planetary positions. In current times, Ujjain has to start from scratch. Changing Ujjain as the GMT (UTC) is not possible as it requires consensus of all countries. Instead the govt may take the antiquity of Ujjain to the attention of world bodies like UNESCO and get it's antiquity recognised. First of all let the government adopt our Time system, the Kali yuga which is followed by the 7000+ panchangas throughout Bharat and for all religious purposes and get it entered into the World Astronomy Calendar. That will prove the world we have the oldest living calendar, besides removing the cacophony created by the Mahabharata researchers. PS: Kali yuga date is uniform throughout the country, but time is not uniform. We have artificially made a uniform time by IST to avoid confusion.
