Minister of Information and Broadcasting, Smriti Irani on Monday, again pulled up a tweet by PTI which showed men wearing Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Bihar Chief minister Nitish Kumar's masks and celebrating Friendship day.
PTI is a news agency that provides news stories and photographs to a lot of other agencies in India, and its tweet on the new Modi-Nitish friendship on the occasion of Friendship day did not skip Irani's eyes.
The link between the image and the story it accompanied was very weak to say the least, as it was about the Bihar CM urging the centre to allocate funds for lower judiciary in Bihar, according to Firstpost reports.
Irani, who was offended by the photograph, shot off in a tweet expressing her displeasure and went on to question PTI's 'official stand'.
In an attempt to undo the mistake, PTI deleted the tweet. Since they had also released that image to other media outlets, they sent out a 'kill' alert, asking them to withdraw the picture. Later, replying to Smriti Irani's tweet, they tweeted back saying- "PTI apologises for hurting sentiments and therefore has withdrawn the picture. @smritiirani "
Smriti Irani has been keeping a close eye on PTI as this is the second time she has found a reason for expressing her displeasure, although the earlier incident had been a little less controversial.
In the previous incident, the Press Trust of India sacked a photographer on Friday for uploading an image of a flooded Chennai airport from December 2016 in lieu of Ahmedabad airport. In reply to Smriti Irani's tweet, PTI wrote that it regretted the mistake.
.@PTI_News is this how elected heads will be projected? Is this your official stand ? https://t.co/YrAuxPT6wJ
— Smriti Z Irani (@smritiirani) August 6, 2017
PTI apologises for hurting sentiments and therefore has withdrawn the picture. @smritiirani
— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) August 6, 2017
Although the photograph of the flood had been a blunder and Irani had been right while pointing it out, it is hard to find out PTI's mistake in this instance. The current image in controversy is just of political workers wearing masks of their leaders. These masks are worn even during political rallies to display their support. Now, with Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar becoming allies in Bihar, this image hardly seems problematic.
Here's the video:
