On Sunday, Piyush Goyal, the Union Minister for Railways, posted a video of the Vande Bharat Express with the text, “It’s a bird…It’s a plane…Watch India’s first semi-high speed train built under ‘Make in India’ initiative, Vande Bharat Express zooming past at lightening speed.” The same video has been posted on Goyal’s official Twitter and Facebook accounts.
It’s a bird...It’s a plane...Watch India’s first semi-high speed train built under ‘Make in India’ initiative, Vande Bharat Express zooming past at lightening speed. pic.twitter.com/KbbaojAdjO
— Piyush Goyal (@PiyushGoyal) February 10, 2019
The video was also retweeted by Ram Madhav, the National General Secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party.
A delight to see d world class train made in India. Kudos to GoI n specially to Indian Railways https://t.co/C8eslwzUnu
— Ram Madhav (@rammadhavbjp) February 10, 2019
Republic TV also published an article based on Piyush Goyal’s tweet with the title “WATCH: Piyush Goyal Gives A Glimpse Of Bird And Plane-like Vande Bharat Express.”
WATCH: Piyush Goyal gives a glimpse of bird and plane-like Vande Bharat Expresshttps://t.co/88PordtQpo
— Republic (@republic) February 10, 2019
Soon after Piyush Goyal, posted this video, comments on the minister’s Facebook page suggested that the video posted is not original, and has in fact been speeded up.
What is the truth?
We looked up the YouTube link posted by the Facebook user in the comments section of Piyush Goyal’s video post. The video has been posted on a YouTube channel called “The Rail Mail” on December 20, 2018. The about section of this YouTube Channel suggests that the videos on this channel are posted by train enthusiasts, also known as “train spotters”. The YouTube channel also has its Facebook page, and the Facebook user who contested the minister is an admin on the Facebook page.
The portion of the video that Piyush Goyal tweeted starts at the 26th second in the video below.
From this above, it is clear that the video posted by the Railway Minister was a clipped portion of the above YouTube video, which was then speeded up to twice its original speed. A side-by-side speed comparison of the video posted by Piyush Goyal and the original video can be seen below
The video was shot at Asaoti railway station in Haryana. The original YouTube video also bears a trademark watermark, which matches the Facebook user who claimed it has his video.
The video posted by Piyush Goyal has been circulating on social media since the end of January. A Facebook user had posted the same video on his timeline on January 30 and can be seen below.
This is not the first time that Piyush Goyal has posted misleading information on social media. He has been charged on multiple occassions for posting misleading images and information, trying to portray the development efforts of the Union Government in a positive light.
This article first appeared on AltNews.in.