The Rafale deal has been turned into the Loch Ness monster by the opposition. They have time and again hurled allegations of a “scam” in the inter-governmental Rafale deal between the Indian government and the French government to buy 36 Rafale jets made by Dassault Aviation. Unfortunately for the Congress party, their allegations have failed to stick. Earlier, Rahul Gandhi, during the no-confidence motion in the parliament against the Modi government had alleged that he had personally spoken to French President Macron and he had told Gandhi that the Indian government was free to divulge details and the deal was not covered under the confidentiality clause. This claim too was promptly refuted by the French government.
On 21st September 2018, an interview of the former President Hollande surfaced in the French media where Hollande has allegedly claimed that the French government did not have any option but to go with Anil Ambani led Reliance as the service provider for Dassault in the mega Rafale deal. We reported how the French government and Dassault Aviation had refuted Hollande’s claims and asserted that the choice of partnering with Reliance was independently made by Dassault and the Indian government or the French government had no role to play.
Piggybacking on the discussion surrounding Hollande’s claims and the French government’s counterclaims, NDTV journalist Noopur Tiwari floated a wild conspiracy theory that revealed her lack of comprehension skills.
She claimed that while she was covering Prime Minister Modi’s Paris visit in 2015, where the “infamous” Rafale deal was announced, she noticed that in the list issued on the same day by the French government, the Ambani’s and Adani’s names were on top of the list. She insinuated, that since the Indian government’s list did not have the names on the top, the Indian government had perhaps hidden the fact that they were present.
Covering PM Modi Paris visit in 2015 when the infamous #Rafale deal was announced, as @ndtv reporter, had noted that for some reason GOI kept it hidden from the media that Mr Ambani, Mr Adani were v much there. Accessed list issued the same day by French gov that had them on top! pic.twitter.com/vg7RAsSd32
— Noopur (@NoopurTiwari) September 21, 2018
Her lack of comprehension skills and zealousness to insinuate wrongdoing on the part of the government was soon called out by vigilant political observers on Social Media.
Deepak Singh who goes by the Twitter handle @smarket, pointed out that the French list was in alphabetical order while the Indian list was not. Hence, in the French list, the names of Ambani and Adani were on the top and in the Indian list, their names were not on top.
Are you crazy? The French list is in alphabetical order while that’s not the case with Indian list. Either you don’t have analytical skills or you are deliberately misleading people….no wonder you are with NDTV https://t.co/Z1cKRruJXD
— Deepak Singh (@smarket) September 21, 2018
If one notices carefully, it is indeed true that the French list was in alphabetical order. This fact was missed, either deliberately or otherwise by the NDTV journalist who proceeded to insinuate wrongdoing on the part of the Indian government.
NDTV’s apparent bias against the Modi government and in favour of Congress is no secret. It was recently revealed by a senior journalist the NDTV used to take editorial orders from the PMO when the Congress was in power. Earlier in March, Supriya Prasad, the Managing Editor of the Aaj Tak and India Today news channels, too, had said that he never faced any kind of pressure from the government regarding news broadcasts or running ‘favourable news’. Amusingly, many ‘celebrity’ journalists, like NDTV’s Ravish Kumar and India Today group’s very own Rajdeep Sardesai, while trying to raise the bogey of ‘undeclared emergency’ or while commenting on CBI raids against NDTV promoters, have tried to insinuate that the Narendra Modi government was trying to muzzle voices in media by putting pressure.
NDTV is famous for its tabloid journalism and has earlier too been slammed for misreporting and concocting false news. Earlier, we had brought forward yet another attempt by NDTV of fabricating information to sensationalize news.
