An old video of a person flipping pages of Dubai-based newspaper Khaleej Times with several advertorials featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been shared on social media with a false claim that it shows a recent coverage of the publication on the prime minister's 72nd birthday.
BOOM found the video is old and shows a Khaleej Times supplement published in June 2019 after Modi was sworn-in as the prime minister for the second time.
On September 17, Modi turned 72 receiving wishes from leaders and his supporters from across the world. On the occasion, eight cheetahs were flown-in from Africa's Namibia into the Kuno National Park, in Madhya Pradesh and released in the premises. According to news reports, his supporters and the BJP members celebrated the day doing several activities across the country.
The video is captioned as, "Khaleej Times, Dubai, published a 70 page special coverage on PM Narendra Modi 's 72 nd birthday,a proud moment for India".
Click here to view the post.
Tamil Nadu BJP IT-DM Cell secretary G Pradeep also tweeted the video on Modi's birthday as a recent special coverage by Khaleej Times.
Click here to view the post.
Fact Check
BOOM first checked the Khaleej Times edition published on September 17, 2022 but found no similarity with the newspaper shown in the viral video. The Khaleej Times edition published on September 17 can be read here.
We also noticed an article titled 'Retracing Narendra Modi's change-making first visit' published in the newspaper at the 26 seconds mark in the video. Taking a cue, we searched for the same words and found the same article published on Khaleej Times website on June 2, 2019.
Further, a keyword search led us to the same video tweeted by the BJP leader and former North Delhi Mayor Ravinder Gupta on June 4, 2019.
Click here to view the tweet.
The official handle of Consulate General of India, Dubai tweeted a picture of the same newspaper with a caption saying, "Wonderful supplement in Khaleej Times today on Modi 2.0".
Click here to view the tweet.
The comparison between the scenes from viral video and the edition published by Khaleej Times on June 2, 2019, can be seen below.
Khaleej Times too posted about their special 40-page report on Modi 2.0 uploading a photo of the same page on their official Facebook page on June 2, 2019. Several prominent news outlets coined the term 'Modi 2.0' when Narendra Modi elected for the second term as the prime minister in 2019.
