A purported news bulletin by Sudhir Chaudhary, editor-in-chief of DD News has surfaced claiming that India has gained veto power at the United Nations with the support of 154 countries.
BOOM found the voiceover of Chaudhary was AI-generated.
In the video, a voice purported to be that of news anchor Sudhir Chaudhary claims that India has gained veto power at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York after waiting for the “historic moment” for decades and an opposition from the United States. In the video Chaudhary also appears to say that over 154 countries voted in favour of India, helping it secure veto power and join the ranks of the world’s most powerful nations.
The Claim
A Facebook user shared the video with a Hindi caption that translates to, “154 countries signed in favour of India’s changed governance at the veto!!”
(Original Text in Hindi: वीटो के पास 154 देशों ने भारत के बदले हुए शासन पर हस्ताक्षर किये!!)
Click here to view the post.
What We Found: Viral News Bulletin Is Fake
1. No Such Report: BOOM first ran a keyword search but found no credible report supporting the viral claim. To verify further, we checked the official United Nations website, which states that the Right to Veto power is held by five countries - China, France, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (now the Russian Federation), the United Kingdom, and the United States - because of their key roles in founding the UN. India is not listed among them.
According to the UN website, "They were granted the special status of Permanent Member States at the Security Council, along with a special voting power known as the "right to veto". It was agreed by the drafters that if any one of the five permanent members cast a negative vote in the 15-member Security Council, the resolution or decision would not be approved."
2. The News Bulletin: We ran a related Hindi keyword search and found that the video was uploaded on a verified YouTube channel called Info Gyan. The video shows journalist Sudhir Chaudhary for 9 seconds at the beginning, along with a voiceover that is claimed to be his. However, the visuals show a clear mismatch between Chowdhury’s lip movements and the voiceover. The bulletin also features a slideshow of unrelated images.
We further noticed that the channel has uploaded several similar videos featuring Chaudhary wearing the same black-and-white tie. On comparison, we found that he wore a similar outfit while hosting Aaj Tak's show Black and White.
3. AI Audio Detector Tools Flag Manipulation: We extracted the audio and tested it using undetectable AI and DeepFake-o-Meter’s audio detection tools. The results confirmed that the audio had been manipulated and was generated using artificial intelligence.
