#eNaradanews | Bengaluru | Thursday, April 16, 2020 | 22.00
By R. Guru Prasad
By serving notice to a private Kannada News channel, Government today reiterated its stand towards zero – tolerance for false news.
The Kannada news channel ‘Public TV’ broadcasted false news on April 15 at 8.30 pm that Modi Government will drop hard cash from helicopters across the nation. The news item went viral and people started to believe that they will get cash from the sky.
Press Information Bureau (PIB) from the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting took the misleading news item seriously and sent a notice to the TV channel with a warning message of closing their channel. ‘When the whole country is fighting the COVID -19, your channel, instead of creating awareness and educating the public, started spreading false information, creating Panic and Social unrest,’ PIB observed in its notice.
There is ten days’ time for the news channel to give an explanation, failing which the channel may be shut forever.
It can be recalled that Public TV aired a program “HELICOPTER MONEY- Helicopternalli suritara MODI ” ( Prime Minister Modi will drop cash from helicopters ) for helping people during Lockdown. The news item also mentioned that the ‘Cash’ which will be dropped from the sky in all the cities is ‘nonreturnable’ and ‘tax-free’.
People took to social media to criticise the irresponsible attitude of Public TV.
A private company employee Santhoshkumar posted a message on Facebook that Fake news creators be punished severely.
