Author: S Sudhir Kumar
Publication: Niticentral.com
Date: April 9, 2013
URL: http://www.niticentral.com/2013/04/09/sagarika-ghose-caught-lying-on-twitter-about-narendramodi-63643.html

Gujarat’s Chief Minister Narendra Modi gave two speeches in Delhi on Monday. Both were packed with content and the reaction of the usual suspects was on predictable lines. In the morning, he spoke at a FICCI event and addressed women entrepreneurs. In the evening, he spoke at a Network 18 event, Think India.

Since the reactions of the ‘national media’were along predictable lines, I thought there was no point deriding their illogical arguments. But they upped the ante this time.

The Deputy Editor of CNN-IBN, whose parent company Network 18 organised the Think India event, tweeted this:

- Why didn’t Modi stay and take any questions? Was he afraid of another India Today conclave situation? Not fair, Modiji!
#thinkindia

This is shocking beyond belief. She is resorting to blatant lies in this day and age. And she holds the position of Deputy Editor on the channel!

Modi spoke at the event for half-an-hour. He took multiple questions for 35 minutes. He took questions on a range of topics – Centre-State relations; FDI; foreign trade; privatisation of PSUs; labour reforms; land acquisition; defence equipment manufacturing; his message to the youth – and answered each of them in detail. He took several questions from Raghav Bahl,host and Managing Director of Network18. He took some questions from the audience too.

All this was shown and seen on live TV, even on CNN-IBN. And yet the deputy editor of CNN-IBN blatantly decided to lie on social media by asking:

“Why didn’t Modi stay and take any questions?” Those who did not watch the event on TV would assume she is telling the truth – which is far from the truth!

And what does she mean by “Was he afraid of another India Today conclave situation?”

Editor-in-Chief on CNN-IBN Rajdeep Sardesai had this to say (among other things):

- #thinkIndiaModi did speak well on the subject given: ‘Less govt, more governance’. But shld have been ready to take more qs.

These folks are never happy I guess! There has to be a ‘but’ just for the sake of it. Anyway, while that is a matter of opinion on whether he “should have taken more questions” despite having a flight to catch, the open and blatant misinformation by the deputy editor is shameful to say the least. The worst part is that none of the CNN-IBN journalists even felt it right to correct her. I guess the hatred runs very deep.

I asked Rajdeep Sardesai for a clarification on this and he replied.

- @ssudhirkumar would have been more accurate to say: should have taken more questions.

Sagarika Ghose is yet to make any attempt to correct her tweet.