In a statement, the council rationalized the reduction by stating they wanted to reduce the content load on students in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. On June 1, India cut a slew of foundational topics from tenth grade textbooks, including the periodic table of elements, Darwin's theory of evolution, the Pythagorean theorem, sources of energy, sustainable management of natural resources and contribution of agriculture to the national economy, among others. These changes effectively block a major swath of Indian students from exposure to evolution through textbooks, because tenth grade is the last year mandatory science classes are offered in Indian schools.
I think there's an argument to be made for letting students specialize a bit earlier than college freshman or sophomore 18-20 years old). I think a basic foundation of subjects is something everyone should have, but an entire year of something like chem or physics or bio? That's about as useless for humanities people as an entire year of reading plays would be for science types.
Maybe a semester on each one is sufficient, and then after 10th grade (16-18 YO) you can choose to focus more on humanities vs STEM. You can still leave something similar to the current curriculum in place for the undecided students. And of course you can still have some crossover with electives.