Subject: Modi & the Miracle of Photoshop
From: Alex Kemp
Date: Friday, 4 December 2015 20:59:43 +0000
To: Oliver Kemp, Micaela Kemp, Liisa Kemp, Davin Kemp
« ‹ ⌃ Home ⌃ › »

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34991822

Narendra Modi is the current Prime Minister of India (the world’s largest democracy by population & land-mass). PM Modi is a touch controversial for various reasons (see bottom) and that is possibly why those that surround him seek to enhance his image, though in the most astonishingly gauche manner:-

Tweet from PM Modi following flight over Chennai (Madras) in Tamil Nadu state on Thursday 4 December 2015

There have been wide-spread floods in Chennai, causing much damage + the loss of 260 lives in the last month. The water is neck-high in some areas. Naturally, the PM was briefed on the situation, and flown over the afflicted area. Naturally, the Press Information Bureau (PIB) issued a tweet with accompanying photographs (above). Unfortunately, someone in the PIB then decided that the view through the porthole was too washed-out and that they could improve it. So, they re-issued the tweet with the following small (unannounced) change to the bottom-right picture:

The re-tweeted picture - no-one would notice the small change, right?

The Indian population is reckoned at 1.311 billion people, and each one of them seems to have a smartphone. Social media went into meltdown! Here is just one of the replies:-

It seems the PM had some time for sight-seeing whilst in Chennai...

The second tweet, with it’s amateur editing, was removed & replaced with the original.

Ah yes. Democracy is healthy & active in India, it seems.

Narendra Damodardas Modi is the 15th Prime Minister of India, having taken office on 26 May 2014. He was born on 17 September 1950 & is a leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) since the age of eight. The RSS is a right-wing volunteer, Hindu nationalist, non-governmental organisation closely aligned to the BJP political party. Modi has been rightly praised for his efforts in improving national standards of health and sanitation as PM (many do not have any indoor facilities, and large numbers of young women are attacked, raped or murdered whilst walking in the local fields or forests to attend to their toilet). Modi is a Hindu nationalist, and it is him & his party’s activities in this role before becoming PM that has caused the controversy.

---------
Alex Kemp