Russian MFA slammed the fake news of The Print which stated that India-Russia annual summit was cancelled due to Russia's concern for India's ties with QUAD. Factually, the event was shelved due to Covid-19 pandemic compulsions.
The Print is founded and headed by Shekhar Gupta, also the Prsident of the Editor’s Guild of India, who is well known for his wheeler dealer style reports. Peddling fake news and fabricating news is no stranger for the Editor who in The Indian Express did a hit job on General VK Singh by churning out a fake coup story on the then Indian Army General, Gen. VK Singh in 2012.
While netizens in social media have been regularly calling out the lies of the so-called main stream media which actually runs like pamphleteers of the Congress party, it has been now smacked by the Russian Government for publishing fake news.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia’s official twitter account, MFA Russia directly exposed Print’s lies for publishing fake news about postponement of India-Russia Annual Summit . The MFA Russia wrote, that the Print’s “attempt to create a sensation from nothing failed and looked ludicrous and helpless”.
The MFA advised The Print that, “We hope that the outlet will draw necessary conclusions from now on focus on facts, rather flashy headlines aimed at attracting attention” We all know that expecting Print to focus on facts is like expecting Rahul Gandhi to wisen up and stop being a political nitwit or to expect a dog’s tail to be straightened. The tweet by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is given below.
The MFA came out with this statement to crush the canard spread by The Print on December 23, 2020 in an article by Nayanima Basu, titled, “India-Russia annual summit postponed for the first time in two decades amid Moscow’s unease with Quad”. The Print here tried to play mischief with foreign relations by trying to suggest that India-Russia ties are at its lowest ebb due to India’s engagement in the Quad .
Notably, Quad consisting of India, Australia, Japan and US was formed as an informal strategic dialogue with shared objective to ensure free, open and prosperous Indo- Pacific Region. The informal dialogue was to formulate a policy to contain the Chinese growing hegemony in South East Asia.
The MFA, Russia stated on Facebook that the Russian Ambassador to India, Nikolay Kudashev in a press statement had provided that “even though the COVID-19 pandemic had changed the schedule of contacts and delayed the annual summit, it had not become an obstacle to the strengthening of friendly ties between our countries.”
The Russian government said, “During the event, members of the media were informed about the well-known position of Moscow: Russia welcomes the commitment of its Indian partners to the promotion of inclusive formats of regional cooperation as opposed to the division that a number of other countries are trying to impose, as they build their policies in the spirit of containment.”
The statement further added that their Indian counterpart had raised the sensationalist report by The Print “emphasising that in 2020, the summit, with the mutual agreement of the parties, had not taken place due to the pandemic, and insinuations of any other kind were invalid.”
It added, “The Indian Foreign Ministry noted separately that the spread of false information about important bilateral relations was “particularly irresponsible.”” The report in question was published on the 23rd of December, 2020.
“The Print’s attempt to create a sensation from nothing failed and looked even more ludicrous and helpless amid dozens of other articles published following the briefing which described various aspects of Russian-Indian relations in a constructive and correct manner.”
The Russian Government also asked The Print to mend its ways and focus more on facts rather than create sensational headlines, by stating “We hope that the outlet will draw necessary conclusions from now on focus on facts, rather flashy headlines aimed at attracting attention”
The said Facebook Post of the Russian Foreign Ministry smacking the Print’s lies is given below .
The Print fake report had claimed that Russia had “expressed severe reservations on New Delhi joining the Indo-Pacific initiative and Quad, thereby tilting more towards the US.” Thankfully, this mischief by The Print did not cause any damage to India-Russia friendly ties and it was debunked by the Russian Ambassador to India, Nikolay Kudashev, by stating that the report was “far from reality”.
Notably, Rahul Gandhi had latched on to the fake report of The Print report to castigate the foreign policy of the NDA Government at the Center led by Narendra Modi. Rahul Gandhi had stated that, “Russia is a very important friend of India. Damaging our traditional relationships is short-sighted and dangerous for our future.”
It is note worthy that on 15 May, 2020, The Print had carried a story by Shivam Vij which openly called for spreading lies in the media, which anyway they have been doing for the past seven decades since independence, to defeat Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo electorally and pave way for the Sonia Gandhi family rule at the centre again.
Vij also said that the opposition parties’ governments in states should crackdown on ‘hate mongers’, the definition of hate mongers being very variable where even a mild criticism of Sonia Gandhi, her son, the leftists, Islamist jihadis and Christian evangelists are regarded as “hate mongering” by Shivam Vij and co. This advise is literally followed by the Congress supported Maharashtra Government by reigning terror on even the mildest criticizers of the Maha Vikas Aghadi Govt and harassing Arnab Goswami for standing up to Sonia Maino.
It is highly unlikely Shekhar Gpta’s The Print will stop its squinted approach of masquerading their jaundiced views as news reports. Ironically these peddlers of fabricated news see themselves as the self-appointed custodians of holding up morality in journalism. Their hatred for Modi is mostly because their gravy train from the Congress rule has vanished because Modi believes in directly communicating with the citizens of India rather than feed such dead woods by wasting tax payers’ money on them. Since now they are forced to work hard and use their brains, which are non-existent due to years of slavery and pamphleteering for the Nehru family, to earn their keep they feel orphaned from 2014.
The Print and its brothers in arm were a national joke now they have become international joke with the Russian Government resoundingly calling out their jaundiced lies.
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