Several social media posts have claimed that Economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen commented on Indian government's move to ban the mobile version of PUBG, an immensely popular multiplayer game. It is being said that Amartya Sen projected a further dip in the country's economy due to the ban on PUBG.
However, he did not make any such statement and the quote doing the rounds on the Internet is "fabricated".
The claim
Days after the Ministry of Information and Technology banned as many as 118 Chinese applications including PUBG, a purported statement by Amartya Sen surfaced on social media platforms.
"Banning of #PUBG will more ruin the Indian economy: Amartya Sen," the statement read. The source of the quote was a news report published by Bharat News on September 4.
An excerpt from the now-deleted article stated in Bangla, "According to Amartya Sen, India will not be able to see any profit after banning the Chinese apps. The country's economy will suffer a huge loss. He further added that banning apps is not the solution to any problem. Today, India is dependent on China for technology and spare parts for children's toys, various instruments and machines. So conflict with China will affect India's economy and supply of goods."
Below is a screenshot of the article:
Subsequently, Facebook and Twitter users cited the news report to spread the misleading claim that Amartya Sen condemned the banning of Chinese apps. Even former governor of Tripura Tathagata Roy retweeted the quote and wrote, "Appropriate."
Appropriate! https://t.co/oLQnMCUMHK
— Tathagata Roy (@tathagata2) September 6, 2020
Fact-Check
Amartya Sen's daughter Antara Dev Sen rubbished all such claims and clarified that her father did not make any statement on the impact of Chinese apps ban on the economy of India. "The quote is entirely fabricated," she was quoted as saying by The Quint.
Furthermore, there are no credible media reports talking about the said comment by Amartya Sen. Relevant keyword searches showed that no such remark has been made by him.
Therefore, it can be concluded that a false statement is being attributed to Amartya Sen. In a digital strike on China amid tensions along the LAC, India last week decided to ban additional 118 mobile apps of the Chinese origin.
