Gandhi told his grandson Kantilal: “Don’t keep a watch unless you have a sense of time.” The story is told by Rashmi-Sudha Puri of the Gandhi Bhavan at Punjab University. Gandhi’s associate Nirmal Kumar Bose recalled that Gandhi kept his pocket watch, with its alarm set for 4 a.m., under his pillow.
On January 30, 1948, the day he was killed, Abha said to him: “Bapu, your watch must be feeling very neglected, you did not even look at it today!”
In July 2021, Aaj Tak reported, Prime Minister Narendra Modi advised his ministers to be punctual and to be in their offices by 9:30 a.m. PM Modi waqt ke paband hain aur chahte hain ki unke mantri bhi waqt par daftar aayen. PM Modi keeps to time and wants his ministers to come to the office on time too.
On the first day, the same report said, the new Minister of State for Health, Bharti Pravin Pawar, reached her office about an hour and a half late.
In a 2024 interview with Kapil Sibal, the actress Sharmila Tagore spoke about the punctuality of the stars she had worked with. Shashi Kapoor was always on time. Rajesh Khanna was often late. According to Pinkvilla’s report, Amitabh Bachchan “would go a step further, arriving before anyone else, even before the cleaners.”
On July 28, 1961, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru unveiled the first batch of 800 wristwatches from the new HMT watch factory in Bangalore. Hindustan Machine Tools, a company owned by the government, had built the factory with know-how from Citizen of Japan. HMT advertised its watches with the line “timekeepers to the nation.”
Ab pachhtaye kya hot, jab chidiyan chug gayin khet. What use is regret now, when the birds have eaten the field? The Rekhta dictionary lists the saying and gives its English equivalent as “no use crying over spilt milk.”
Indian Railways counts a train as on time if it reaches its last station within 15 minutes of the timetable. Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee examined this in a report presented to the Lok Sabha on February 4, 2026. The Tribune quoted it: “The extra threshold of 15 minutes is too large.”
By that measure, punctuality was 90.48 percent in 2021-22 and 73.62 percent in 2023-24, ThePrint reported. The committee called the method misleading, because punctuality is measured only at the terminating station and delays on the way are not counted.
Kaal kare so aaj kar, aaj kare so ab. Pal mein pralay hoyegi, bahuri karego kab. Do tomorrow’s work today, and today’s work now. Disaster may come in a moment. When will it be done then? The couplet is by the poet Kabir.
On November 21, 2014, the Department of Personnel and Training ordered an Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system for all central government offices. Offices in Delhi had until December 31, 2014. Offices elsewhere had until January 26, 2015.
Each late arrival would cost half a day of casual leave. Lateness of up to an hour, twice a month and for good reason, could be excused. A further order in June 2015 stated: “Habitual late attendance is viewed as conduct unbecoming of a Government servant.”
Bas paanch minute. Just five minutes. In its video series Desi D, The Quint jokes about Indian stretchable time and about people who “say they are just five minutes away” when they are not even ready.