A video showing a British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) news anchor questioning and comparing India's space mission with the poverty statistics of the nation is being linked with Chandrayaan-3, following the successful soft-landing of the mission.
The viral video shows the anchor asking this an Indian reporter, "Some people will be thinking about this. India, a country that lacks a lot of infrastructure, a country that has extreme poverty. I think more than 700 million Indians don't have access to a toilet. Should they really be spending this much money on a space mission?"
An archive can be seen here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
At the time of writing this story, the viral video posted by '@MegUpdates' on X (formerly Twitter) had garnered over 3.3 million views.
(Archives of similar claims can be seen here and here.)
Is this video recent?: No, this video is from 2019 when ISRO had launched Chandrayaan-2.
How did we find out the truth?: On performing a reverse image search on some of the keyframes of the video, we came across a YouTube video shared in 2019.
The title stated that it showed BBC's reaction on Chandrayaan-2 which had launched on 22 July 2019 (sic).
The video showed reporter Bradley Walsh talking about India's Chandrayaan-2 mission from 2019.
The longer version of the video also shows a headline in the ticker which reads, "Chandrayaan-2: India launches second Moon mission."
BBC's report with the same headline from 22 July 2019 can be found here.
The headline mentioned Chandrayaan-2 and not Chandrayaan-3.
(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)
The bulletin also showed multiple headlines, amongst which one read, "Israel razes Palestinian homes 'built too near barrier".
The same article was found on BBC's website, and it was shared on 22 July 2019.
Another headline read, "French Minerve submarine is found after disappearing in 1968", which was published by the outlet on the same day.
The article is from 22 July 2019.
(Source: YouTube/Altered by The Quint)
Statement from former BBC India Digital Head: Mukesh Sharma posted on X that this viral video is old and unrelated to Chandrayaan-3.
An archive can be seen here.
(Source: X/Screenshot)
BBC's clarification: BBC News' Press team also posted a clarification on X stating that this viral video is from 2019.
We have reached out to the Indian reporter, Nitin Srivastava, who is being interviewed in the viral video, and the story will be updated once we get a response.
Conclusion: An old interview of BBC showing an anchor compared India's moon mission to the nation's poverty is unrelated to Chandrayaan-3.
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