Assam boy Tanmoy Chakraborty invited by ‘NASA’ is a Fake News

April 25: Social media is replete with huge number of photo-shopped images aimed at claiming something to suit one;s own personal likes or dislikes. The Lok Sabha Election 2019 probably witnessed many such fake images created to malign the opponents and to earn laurels for their own party.

However, very recently, an incident from Lumding, Assam where a 12^th standard boy Tanmoy Chakraborty, who was believed to be invited by ‘NASA’ to be part of a ‘Young Scientist Competition’ because of his ‘invention’ that supposedly detected ‘earthquake 48-72 hour in advance’ caught the imagination of not only print media but also of Electronic media (including some news portals of Barak Valley).

However, this viral story of Tanmoy Chakraborty now appear to be fraudulent and devoid of any authentication. It is nothing less than a figment of imagination, a pack of lies. The claim of Tanmoy Chakraborty questioned by one Manabendra Saharia, an Assamese from Guwahati, who works at NASA as a hydrologist. Saharia took to the social media and wrote that NASA has an outreach office that distributes several educational materials, for free, including certificates (to be used for achievement awards to children) that ‘anyone’ can get a print out of from the organization’s website. He further commented that it is one of these certificates that Chakraborty has used ‘with his name on it’ to mislead the media houses.

Another story that garnered equal widespread attention and praise was that of a of a supposed 7-year-old girl Licypriya Kangujam from Manipur believed to be on her way to the United Nations headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland to address a ‘global UN session’ for ‘Disaster Risks Reduction’. Investigation by the Imphal Free Press (IFP) revealed the whole account to be a sham and a fully made-up ‘story’ and a nefarious work of a man called Kangujam Kanarjit, alias Dr KK Singh who has many criminal cases pending upon him.

Finally, on the basis of the IFP report and the Facebook post by Saharia, all the media houses deleted both the news items from their pages. It is probably a warning bell for the media too to cross check the credibility of the sources generating news before they publish it.

(way2barak always tries to verify the sources and publish those news which comes from credible sources. Team way2barak had not published either of these stories, however appealing they might have been. We assure to present only those updates which bears truth and refrain from publishing any fake news).