How India got stuck in its own unusual time zone
Nine hours and 30 minutes ahead of New York. Five hours and 30 minutes ahead of London. Three hours and 30 minutes behind Tokyo.
For more than a century, India’s clocks have officially fallen short of the full hour in calculating any time difference it has with most countries.
And while it is part of a small group of nations and territories that shares that 30-minute gap - including Iran, Myanmar and parts of Australia - India is perhaps the most unlikely outlier.
The huge South Asian nation geographically spans what would normally be two time zones, but much to the frustration of some groups, it clings to its unusual clock settings, refusing to part ways with a system that has a very complicated past.
India’s half-hour zone dates back to colonial rule of India and the era when ever-faster steamships and trains were shrinking the world.
