: Photoshop gaffes refuse to spare the Modi government. In the latestembarrassment to the Centre, the Ministry of Culture in its Independence Day celebration video has shown a Chinese built JF-17 fighter jet flying with an Indian flag.
In what appears to be a poor cut-and-paste job, the opening portion of the video to celebrate 69 years of Independence features an animated sequence of the JF-17 flying with an Indian tricolour.
The short video of over a minute was posted on micro blogging site Twitter from the official handle @MinOfCultureGoI but was quickly corrected after it soon became a point of discussion.
The JF-17 Thunder multi-role fighter has been jointly developed by China and Pakistan. Pakistan intends to make it the mainstay of its fleet.
The JF-17 is in the same league as India’s indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft Tejas, and there has been much debate on their comparative capabilities.
Pakistan has already inducted the JF-17 and is also manufacturing them locally. China and Pakistan have been jointly marketing the JF-17 as a low cost multi-role fighter for countries in Asia and Africa.
When contacted, Ministry officials said they were busy organising the ‘Bharat Parv’, which began on Friday.
Earlier incidentsThis is not the first time such a goof-up has happened. In April 2016, the BJP claimed in a major ad campaign that the deal for 36 Rafale fighter jets had been concluded for $8.8 billion and, in the process, it had saved the nation $3.2 billion. Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar later clarified that the deal had not been concluded.
In December 2015, when Mr. Modi visited Chennai for assessing the flood crisis, the Press Information Bureau, the government’s official media wing, photoshopped the picture to impose a closer image of a flooded neighbourhood into the frame. This was withdrawn after it was highlighted on Twitter.
