A photo claiming to show a newspaper ad featuring Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal making an appeal for coal donations amid a shortage across the country, is fake and was created as satire.
Kejriwal recently warned of a power crisis in the capital due to a nationwide coal shortage which may lead to an electricity crisis. The national capital's Power Minister Satyendra Jain also expressed his concern about the crisis saying there could be a possible blackout in Delhi in two days if coal supply did not improve. According to a Live Mint report published on October 12, 2021, the Centre has issued directions to Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) and NTPC to supply as much power as available to Delhi due to a potential shortage. Further reports suggest that over half of India's coal fired power plants have fuel stocks of less than three days.
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The morphed advertisement, which reads, "To cut the shortage of electricity, contribute coal to Delhi government." (बिजली की कमी दूर करने के लिए कोयला दान देकर दिल्ली सरकार की मदद करें) is viral in this backdrop. The advertisement also features has a quote from Kejriwal reads, "A bag of coal from you can keep darkness at bay from Delhi."
The caption with the image reads, "Shocking if not true".
Click here for an archive of the post. The morphed photo was tweeted by Twitter user Renuka Jain. BOOM has previously debunked misinformation tweeted by the same Twitter user.
Click here for an archive of the post.
Click here for an archive of the post.
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Fact Check
BOOM observed the viral image closely and found "satire" written on a cutout photo of Arvind Kejriwal present at the bottom right corner of the image.
Satire Mentioned On The Viral Image
We then zoomed-in the photo to find out details about the Hindustan newspaper edition which was altered to create the satirical image. It showed us the original source of the image - the front page of Bihar's Muzaffarpur edition of Hindustan paper published on July 9, 2021.
The zoomed-in details of the viral image can be seen below.
Zoomed-in Details Of Viral Photo
Taking a cue from this, we did a keyword search and found the front page of Bihar's Muzaffarpur edition of Hindustan paper published on July 9, 2021 from Hindustan's website. The search also showed us that a similar-looking advertisement about Delhi Government was published on the paper on the same day's edition.
The original newspaper advertisement can be seen below.
Source: Hindustan Website
The original advertisement was about a Delhi-government scheme to provide financial assistance to Covid-19 victims' families. BOOM found out news reports about the Delhi-government scheme launched by the state's Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
According to a The Hindu report published on July 7, 2021, "Mr. Kejriwal said this while launching the 'Mukhyamantri COVID-19 Pariwar Aarthik Sahayata Yojna', a social security scheme for COVID-19-affected families here on Tuesday. Under the scheme, Delhi government will disburse an ex gratia payment of ₹50,000 for each death to the family of the deceased and ₹2,500 monthly to those families who have lost breadwinners."
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