An undated newspaper clipping in Hindi that reads ‘Niti Aayog VC: India’s economy is in the worst phase since 70 years’ is going viral on social media with users sharing the newsclip as recent. However, Newschecker found these comments to be from 2019.

The news clip has been shared by a Facebook page called ‘All India advocates & judges’ which has 1,75,177 followers on the platform. The social media post has garnered 50,000 likes and 8,500 shares on Facebook.

Newschecker found similar claims on Facebook with the same image.

The Fiscal year 2022-23 began on 1st April 2022, and the GDP of the country showed growth as it tried to reach pre-pandemic levels. Social media has been abuzz with misinformation and unsubstantiated claims on the economic situation of the country since. Newschecker has debunked similar claims on the economic situation of the country in the past.  

 Fact Check/ Verification

Upon performing a keyword search on the words “Niti Aayog”, “economic situation”, “70 years”, Newschecker found a tweet shared by ANI from their official handle on 23rd August, 2019. The tweet shows a video clip of Niti Aayog Vice Chairman, Rajiv Kumar saying “Government recognises absolutely that the problem is in the financial sector. Liquidity is turning into insolvency. Therefore you have got to stop that.” Speaking on the liquidity situation, Mr Kumar said: “Nobody is trusting anybody else. It’s not just the government and the private sector, within the private sector, nobody wants to lend to anybody else.”  

Upon further investigation, Newschecker found a news report by NDTV uploaded on their website on 24th August, 2019 which relayed the same information. According to the report, Niti Aayog Vice Chairman, Rajiv Kumar made these comments at the Hero Mindmine summit.

Upon conducting a keyword search with the words “Niti Aayog”, “India” and “economic situation”, Newschecker found an article by the Economic Times on the 3rd April, 2022, where Rajiv Kumar said that India was on the cusp of an economic recovery.

According to the article Niti Aayog VC Rajiv Kumar said “that it was quite clear from all accounts that India will remain the fastest growing economy in the world” and ruled out the speculations of stagflation as overhyped.

Conclusion

According to the investigation conducted by Newschecker, statements made by the Vice Chairman, Niti Aayog Rajiv Kumar in 2019 are being passed off as recent.

Result: False Context/ Missing Context

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