Fact Check: PM Modi announces free bike scheme for Chhath Puja? No, video is AI-manipulated
A video has been circulating online, claiming that PM Modi announced a free bike scheme for every Indian for Chhath Puja.
By - Md Mahfooz Alam
Claim:Prime Minister Modi announced a free bike scheme for every Indian citizen for Chhath Puja.
Fact:The claim is false. The video has been manipulated using AI.
Hyderabad: The four-day Chhath Puja festival is being celebrated from October 25 to 28. The ancient festival honouring the Sun God is celebrated with fervour in Bihar and Jharkhand.
Meanwhile, a video of Prime Minister Narendra Modi allegedly announcing a free bike scheme for every citizen of India for Chhath Puja is widely circulating on social media.
The video shows the PM allegedly announcing at a public meeting that for the Chhath Puja, everyone will be getting a Splendour bike for free on behalf of the government. The announcement is followed by a news anchor reportedly corroborating the announcement, stating that all people need to do for their free Splendour bike is to like and share the video and input their details in the links in the Instagram profile shown in the video.
Sharing the video, an Instagram account claimed, “Chhath puja special offer free bike order now.” (Archive)
Fact Check
NewsMeter found that the claim is false, as the viral video has been manipulated using AI.
Did any media outlet report the announcement of the free bike scheme?
We conducted a comprehensive keyword search regarding claims that the Prime Minister announced a free bike scheme for Chhath Puja.
However, we found that no credible news outlets are reporting any such announcement. Given the significance of such a scheme, it would have received widespread media coverage had the PM actually made this announcement.
We also verified the claim by checking official government sources, including the MyScheme portal of the Central government and the Press Information Bureau (PIB) website, for any official notification regarding the alleged scheme. No such notification or announcement was found on either platform.
Source of the video
To identify the source of the viral video, we conducted a reverse image search using keyframes from the footage. This led us to an original video lasting over one hour, published on the official YouTube channel of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on February 24, 2019.
The video is titled ‘PM Modi’s speech at launch of PM Kisan Samman Nidhi Yojana in Gorakhpur, UP.’
Upon reviewing the complete speech, we found no mention of any free bike scheme by the Prime Minister. The address focused exclusively on farmers’ welfare, the PM-KISAN scheme and other agriculture-related initiatives.
AI detection analysis confirms manipulation
We subjected the audio to analysis using AI detection tools to verify its authenticity. The Deepfake-O-Meter, utilising two separate detection algorithms, flagged the audio as likely AI-generated with confidence scores of 100 per cent and 99.8 per cent, respectively.
Also, audio analysis using Resemble AI detected that the audio is fake.
Therefore, we conclude that an old video has been manipulated by adding AI-generated audio. No such free bike scheme for Chhath Puja has been announced by PM Modi, hence the claim is false.
