A viral video on various social media platforms is being shared with a claim that Prime Minister Narendra Modi celebrated his birthday with top industrialists amid the coronavirus outbreak even as the agricultural sector continues to be in distress. However, this is a false claim. The video is from Modi’s 2017 visit to Israel and shows him at a beach with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
CLAIM
The aforementioned video is being widely shared on Facebook and Twitter with the same misleading claim which reads: “साहब मना रहे अपना जन्मदिन उद्योगपतियों के साथ..और हमारे देश में किसान आत्महत्या कर रहे है..देश के जवान बोर्डर पर बेवजह अपनी जान गवां रहें है..करोना अपनी चरम सीमा पर है..युवा बेरोजगार हो रहे है..आधा देश बिक चुका है..”
[Translation: Sir is celebrating his birthday with industrialists when farmers of our country are dying by suicide and soldiers are dying on the border. Coronavirus has infected lakhs of people, youth is unemployed and half of the country has been sold.]
WHAT WE FOUND
We fragmented the video into several keyframes and then followed it up with a reverse image search. This directed us to a video dated 7 July 2017 uploaded by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) on YouTube.
Visuals same as those in the viral video can be seen at 6 minutes 26 seconds into this video. It shows Prime Minister Modi at the Dor beach in Israel. A similar video was also uploaded by The Washington Post.
Several media organisations covered Modi’s visit to the beach. According to a report by NDTV, the beach trip came on the last day of PM Modi's historic visit to Israel in 2017, the first-ever by an Indian prime minister.
Evidently, visuals of the PM’s visit to Israel in 2017 are being shared to claim that he celebrated his birthday with industrialists amid the coronavirus pandemic.
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