No, India Today Magazine's Cover on Manipur Doesn't Feature PM Modi

The magazine's latest edition highlights the violence in Manipur that has lasted for over two months.

A viral image showing the purported cover of the India Today Magazine's August 2023 edition has gone viral on the internet.

What is wrong with the image?: The cover image shows PM Narendra Modi with the title "Shameful Blunders" and shows images from the violence-gripped state of Manipur in the background. Users are sharing it with the hashtag "#NeverVoteBJP."

Former cricketer and TMC leader Kirti Azad too shared the claim and his post had more than 260K views while this article was being written.

(Archives of similar claims can be found here and here.)

What is the truth?: The cover image of the magazine has been digitally altered to replace Manipur Chief Minister N Biren Singh's photograph with that of PM Modi.

How did we find out?: We ran a reverse Google image search and found the original India Today cover from 7 August.

• India Today's official X (formerly Twitter) handle also posted a clarification about the distorted cover image.

• The post read that it was upon media houses to ensure the truth reaches the people. It, further, noted that legal action against offenders and individuals posting the fake images.

At a time when our country is battling hate mongers and propagaters of fake news, it is upon media houses like ours to ensure the truth and only the truth reaches you. India Today strongly condemns this act of attempting to malign the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India through this… https://t.co/1AjObir5Mm pic.twitter.com/1Kow3AMHoh

— IndiaToday (@IndiaToday) August 2, 2023

• The official India Today website has the details of the original magazine cover.

• The description of the cover story read, "by allowing Manipur’s wounds to fester, the state and central governments have pushed its people to a point of no return."

• The viral cover image also has "N Biren Singh CM, Manipur" in a tiny font which was also a sign that helped us understand that the cover image is distorted.

Conclusion: The latest edition of the India Today Magazine's cover has been digitally altered to replace CM Singh's photograph with PM Modi's photograph.

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