How Indian media fooled the nation about a massive discovery of gold reserves

'The news of discovery of gold mines with 3,500 tonnes of gold reserve in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district first broke on the Feb 20th in regional papers. By February 22nd, 2020, the entire Indian media was abuzz with the news that Sonbhadra gold mines had gold deposits estimated to be around 3,350 tonnes and worth Rs 12 lakh crore, which is almost five times India’s current gold reserve. The reports quoted a District Mining Officer and estimated that with this find, India’s current gold reserve of 626 tonnes, would jump to second place in the world behind US which holds 8,133.5 tonnes of gold. Even though the reports mentioned ‘gold deposits’, they equated it to actual gold mined and added the entire 3350 tonnes to India’s current gold reserve. Such exuberant reporting continued till later in the day when Geological Survey of India intervened and denied making any such discovery. In this article Alt News will trace how the Indian media fell for unverified news...'

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