IANS Falsely Attributes Parody Account’s Tweet to Raghuram Rajan

Raghuram Rajan did not take a dig at Piyush Goyal for his comments on the economy.

The Quint
WebQoof
Updated:
Raghuram Rajan did not take a dig at Piyush Goyal for his comments on the economy.
i
Raghuram Rajan did not take a dig at Piyush Goyal for his comments on the economy.
(Photo: Altered by The Quint)

advertisement

Don’t fall for fake news, click here to check out The Quint’s WebQoof stories.   

CLAIM

Several media houses on Friday, 13 September, published a story on former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan's alleged response to a recent statement made by Union Minister Piyush Goyal which credited Einstein instead of Newton for discovering gravity.

News agency IANS ran the original story titled ‘It’s a sign that you’re hiding real data: Rajan on Goyal faux pas.’

The Quint also carried the story, although it was an auto-published version of the copy. Economic Times, Outlook, ABP News and Caravan Daily were the other media outlets which ran the story.

The report said that Rajan "launched a scathing attack on Goyal dissecting every work of his remark and saying that he fails to understand the 'gravity' of economic slowdown."

Screed grab of the story.(Photo: IANS)

An archived version of the post can be seen here.

According to IANS, Rajan tweeted, “When you don’t understand the #GRAVITY of the economic slowdown, the words stumble and reasoning becomes feeble. If someone thinks that maths doesn’t help understanding gravity and economics, then it’s a sign that you are hiding the actual statistical data. Newton must be smiling.”

Screen grab of the tweet.(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@RaghuramRRajan)

An archived version of the tweet can be seen here.

WHAT IS THE TRUTH?

Raghuram Rajan did not take a dig at Piyush Goyal for his comments on the economy. News agency IANS sourced the tweet from an unofficial parody account of the former RBI governor.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

The tweet attributed to Rajan was posted by a parody account. ‘Tweets/RTs are Unofficial parody,’ is clearly mentioned in the bio of the Twitter handle.

Screen grab of the tweet.(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/@RaghuramRRajan)

Rajan does not have a Twitter account.

It is clear that no such comments were made by Rajan and several media houses fell for a parody account.

Goyal had said that India should not be concerned about gross domestic product (GDP) calculations as shown on TV, as “maths didn't help Einstein discover gravity,”

The commerce and industry minister was widely trolled on social media over the gaffe in explaining that achieving the target of nearly doubling the size of the economy to 5 trillion dollars should not be looked through the prism of maths.

However, Goyal later admitted that he committed a gaffe by crediting the discovery of gravity to Albert Einstein instead of Issac Newton.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on Whatsapp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at webqoof@thequint.com and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)

(At The Quint, we question everything. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member today.)

Published: 13 Sep 2019,05:28 AM IST

ADVERTISEMENT
SCROLL FOR NEXT