Authors
Shaminder started off his career as a freelance journalist for a consulting and research firm. He has been a Political Strategist and Media Manager. Before joining Newschecker, he worked with various reputed media agencies like Daily Post India, PTC News.
A Twitter user shared an image of a map of India.
The caption reads, “This is a map of India redesigned by an American CEO where he tried to explain that India is indirectly handling the COVID-19 situation of so many countries, owing to its large population”.
An image of the map of India is doing the rounds on the various social media platforms claiming that the American CEO had made this map to show how India is indirectly handling the COVID-19 situation of so many countries. In the viral image of India’s, one can see that each state is compared to a country based on the population.
The text of the viral image reads, “This is a map of India redesigned by an American CEO where he marked the population of the Indian state which is almost equal to the population of some of the countries. He tried to explain that India is indirectly handling the COVID-19 situation of so many countries. He praised Modi Ji in this unique way. The world is recognizing the efforts of Modiji, but some insider slaves and traitors are still criticizing Modiji of mismanagement of COVID-19 in India.”
We found that the image is viral on Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp with multiple claims, and several social media users shared the viral image on their respective handles.
Notably, we found that Bharatiya Janata Party’s National General Secretary Ram Madhav had also shared the image on his official Twitter handle. Even, the Additional Chief Secretary of the Department of Medical Health & Family Welfare Government of Rajasthan shared the same.
Several readers sent the viral video to Newschecker’s WhatsApp helpline number for verification.
Fact Check
As we began fact-checking the claim, we looked for media reports which highlighted an American CEO designing the map. However, during our search, we did not find any authentic information to corroborate the same.
With the help of Google reverse image search, we found a Twitter post uploaded on April 13, 2016, which carried out the viral map. The Tweet was made by Amit Ranjan, who describes himself as an employee of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. The Tweet caption reads, “Thought-provoking map. Indian states mapped to countries of the equivalent population”. There was no mention of any American CEO drawing this map anywhere.
Reverse Image search led us to another Twitter post made by Erik Solheim in 2016. Erik Solheim, who is a former Norwegian diplomat, also nowhere mentioned who drew this map. The Tweet made by Erik reads, “India population now at 1250 million, Look at this map – India is not just another country – it’s enormous”.
Conclusion
It is clear from our fact check that the image of a map of India doing rounds on the social media claiming that an American CEO has redesigned the map where he has tried to explain how India is indirectly handling COVID-19 is four years old and has no connection with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
Sources
- Google Reverse Image Search
- Google Search
- Media Reports
Result: False
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Authors
Shaminder started off his career as a freelance journalist for a consulting and research firm. He has been a Political Strategist and Media Manager. Before joining Newschecker, he worked with various reputed media agencies like Daily Post India, PTC News.
