Fact Check: Does this map show how efficiently India is handling COVID-19 pandemic?
By Satya Priya BN Published on 20 April 2020 7:14 AM GMT
Hyderabad: The Corona virus pandemic is causing widespread concern, panic, and fear across the globe. Countries have been helping each other battle the virus. For example, India is sending hydroxychloroquine to 55 countries and in a gesture of goodwill, Switzerland expressed solidarity with India in its fight against COVID-19 by lighting up the Alps with the Indian Tricolour.
Amidst this, a map of India comparing each state with various countries on the basis of population has gone viral. It claims that India is handling COVID-19 situation of other countries.
"This is Indian map redesigned by an American CEO where he marked the Indian states population which is almost equal to population of some of the countries. He tried to explain to his employees that India is indirectly handling COVID-19 situation of so many countries (sic)," the claim reads.
The map has gone viral on Facebook, too.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's general secretary, Ram Madhav, also shared this image.
Fact Check:
The map is not related to the COVID -19 pandemic.
NewsMeter performed a Google reverse image search and found that this image has been on the Internet since 2016. We also found a few tweets with this image that was posted in 2016.
We also found that the image was shared in Quora in November 2016. In reply to SM Hoaxslayer's fact-check reply to Mr Ram Madhav's tweet, a person named Arpan Srivastava tweeted that he had created the map using MS paint eight years ago.
Here is the link to the article in Quora:
Though the map compares Indian states to different countries, it was not designed by an American CEO and is very old and does not reflect the present COVID-19 situation.
Therefore, the claim going viral on social media is False.
