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  • 2022-02-09 (xsd:date)
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  • India's BJP politicians share misleading school building comparison ahead of Uttar Pradesh vote (en)
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  • As India's most populous state Uttar Pradesh geared up to vote in local elections, politicians from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) shared photos purportedly showing schools in a dilapidated condition under their political rivals and improved under the rule of their own party. However, the photos of the run-down schools were taken after 2017, when Uttar Pradesh returned to BJP rule, according to Indian news organisations that published the images. The difference is clear, reads a Hindi tweet posted on January 4, 2022. The tweet shows three photos of empty, run-down buildings under the header Before 2017 and SP government. It also shows three photos of children in school uniforms in a clean, modern environment under the header After 2017 and Yogi's government. The Samajwadi Party (SP) governed Uttar Pradesh from 2012 to 2017, when Akhilesh Yadav served as state minister. He was defeated by the BJP in 2017 elections, when Yogi Aditynath took over. Text under the photo reads Honest thinking and solid work. Screenshot of the misleading claim shared on Twitter, taken on January 24, 2022 A string of BJP representatives shared the same image in similar posts here , here and here on Twitter and here and here on Facebook. The posts circulated ahead of elections in Uttar Pradesh, home to 220 million people, which start on February 10, 2022. However, the posts are misleading. The photos of the dilapidated school buildings were taken after 2017, when the state returned to BJP rule, according to the news organisations that published the images. First photo A reverse image search found the first photo published in an article by national newspaper Amar Ujala on January 7, 2021. The Hindi-language photo caption reads: School building in Zafarpur, Muzaffarnagar lies in a dilapidated state. Muzaffarnagar is a town in Uttar Pradesh. Rajendra Singh, editor of Amar Ujala's Meerut bureau -- which covers Muzaffarnagar -- said the photo was taken in January 2021, not before 2017 as the misleading posts claim. All the photos in that story are from 2021, they were taken by our stringers in Muzaffarnagar a week before the story was published. The photos are not old, he told AFP on January 31, 2022. The article reports on the dilapidated schools in Muzaffarnagar. Amar Ujala's investigation found a total of 111 schools in poor condition in that region. Below is a screenshot comparison of the school building in the misleading post (left) and the Amar Ujala article (right): Screenshot comparison of the photo shared in misleading posts (L) and in Amar Ujala's article (R) Second photo Another reverse image search found the second photo of an old school building in an article from August 8, 2018 by local news site UttarPradesh.org. The article reports on flooding at a school in Chitrakoot town in Uttar Pradesh. The photo caption reads: Copyright @ UttarPradesh.ORG Primary school filled with water; teachers and children facing difficulties. The photo features a date stamp in the bottom-right corner which reads 2018-8-8, the date the article was published. The same date stamp is visible on the photo shared in the misleading posts. Responding to posts that claimed the photo was taken before 2017, a spokesperson for UttarPradesh.org told AFP: We stand by our story as published on the website. If any images are misused, we are not responsible for the same. Below is a screenshot comparison of the school building in the misleading post image (left) and UttarPradesh.org website (right): Screenshot comparison of the photo shared in misleading posts (L) and in UttarPradesh.org's article (R) Third photo A reverse image search found the third photo of a run-down school building in an article from December 17, 2020 by local news site NewsAdda. It reported on a school in Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh that was forced to close temporarily due to the unavailability of teachers. NewsAdda desk editor Navneet Dwiwedi told AFP that the photo was taken by a staff reporter on December 17, 2020. Below is a screenshot comparison of the school building in the misleading post image (left) and on the NewsAdda website (right): Screenshot comparison of the photo shared in misleading posts (L) and in NewsAdda's article (R) Meanwhile, photos under the after 2017 header in the misleading post were genuinely taken during the BJP's rule of Uttar Pradesh. The pictures were originally published here and here on Twitter in December 2021 by Aryan Mishra, an astronomy student who set up an astronomy lab in a government school in Uttar Pradesh. According to the tweets, the pictures show an astronomy lab in Bulandshahr, Uttar Pradesh. Contacted by AFP, Mishra said the lab was built in August 2021. Mishra said in a 2019 interview he wanted to help the government set up affordable astronomy laboratories across various government schools. (en)
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