In view of global conditions, Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently appealed to citizens not to buy gold for a year in order to reduce the burden on foreign exchange reserves. This statement by PM Modi received media coverage, and several media organisations also shared postcards related to it. Meanwhile, a postcard carrying a statement attributed to PM Modi has gone viral on social media.In this Navbharat Times (NBT) postcard, PM Modi is quoted as saying, “This is not the time to buy gold, but this is the time for the sacrifice of mothers and sisters. Mothers and sisters are requested to sell their gold and deposit all the money in their bank accounts.”
Sharing this postcard on Facebook, a user named Yadav Janshakti Party wrote, “This is not the time to buy gold, but this is the time for the sacrifice of mothers and sisters. Mothers and sisters are requested to sell their gold and deposit all the money in their bank accounts.“( English Translation)
Meanwhile, another Facebook user, Vinod Chand, shared the postcard with a caption in English, the Hindi translation of which reads: “So this is the matter. Narendra Modi has told mothers and sisters to sell their gold and deposit the money into their bank accounts. Now tell me, who is coming for your Mangalsutra?”
Fact Check :
During its investigation of the viral postcard, the DFRAC team found the claim to be fake. PM Modi has not made any such statement, nor has Navbharat Times (NBT) published any postcard containing such a quote.Since the viral postcard carries the NBT logo and closely resembles NBT’s postcard design, our team first examined NBT’s official social media handles. We found a post on the X handle of NBT Hindi News that declared the viral postcard fake.
The post stated: “A claim is being made on social media through a digitally altered image of @NavbharatTimes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to women to sell their gold and deposit the money in banks. This claim is #Fake. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made no such appeal. Please be cautious—legal action will be taken against those misusing NBT’s name. For accurate and official information, rely only on NBT’s official social media handles and platforms.”
During further investigation, we also found a post by the Press Information Bureau (PIB) Fact Check Unit, the Government of India’s nodal fact-checking agency, which also declared the viral postcard fake.PIB stated: “A claim is being made on social media through a digitally altered image of @NavbharatTimes that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has appealed to women to sell their gold and deposit the money in banks. This claim is #Fake. Prime Minister @narendramodi has made no such appeal. In view of global conditions, the Prime Minister had requested the public to defer the purchase of gold. Please stay alert and do not fall for such misleading information. Trust only information received from official sources.”
Conclusion:
The DFRAC team found during its investigation that the viral claim is fake. Prime Minister Narendra Modi did not appeal to the mothers and sisters of the country to sell their gold and deposit the money in banks, nor did Navbharat Times publish any postcard carrying such a statement. Therefore, the claim being shared by users on social media is false.
