Narendra Modi errs on facts, this time about China

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi does not appear to believe that facts are sacred and cannot be twisted to suit political motives. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Jul 16, 2013, 11:53:15 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

Prefer HTon Google

Share via

Copy link

Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi does not appear to believe that facts are sacred and cannot be twisted to suit political motives.

Modi on Sunday said that China spends 20% of its GDP on education to claim how the neighbouring country had transformed its education system to be world-class whereas India had failed. The huge investment, he claimed, had resulted in China's 32 universities being among top 500 universities in the world.

"India has only one university among top 500, which had fallen from two about a decade ago," he said.

Minister of state for human resource development (HRD) quoted Chinese official news agency Xinhua on twitter on Monday to contradict Modi and said China spends only 3.93% of its GDP on education.

The junior minister also gave a comparative chart of the UPA and the NDA governments on the money provided for education to claim that the UPA did better than NDA on this front.

"Spending on education FY-2003-04: Rs.6,800 cr. FY-2013-14: Rs.52,875 cr. Increase in technical edn: from Rs.641cr to Rs 6518.2 cr," he tweeted.

During the NDA's regime the spending on education was 1.67 % of the GDP which increased to 4.2% of the GDP during the UPA government's rule.

Tharoor also countered Modi on another fact. "Modi yesterday: When we got freedom, Rs 1=$1. Now look at the falling rupee. In Soviet days, 1 rouble=$1. Today it is 3 cents".

It is not for the first time that Gujarat chief minister and BJP's poll mascot Narendra Modi had erred on facts. While addressing women industrialists at FICCI recently, Modi had claimed that Gujarat government had empowerment women of his state.

The government's official data said something else. The state's sex ratio dropped marginally under him from 918 girls for 1,000 boys in 2001 to 915 in 2011. It was lower than the national average of 940 in 2011. The girl drop-out rate in schools in Gujarat was higher than the national average.

Modi had also been claiming credit for improvement in Gujarat's school education system.

The official data, however, shows that other states have done better than Gujarat. But in Gujarat, the drop-out rate in class I-X was 57.9 % as against the national average of 49.3%.

The drop-out rate was even higher for deprived sections such as Scheduled Castes and Schedule Tribes. The state also fares badly on providing mid-day meals to school children.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

Catch every big hit, every wicket with Crickit, a one stop destination for Live Scores, Match Stats, Infographics & much more. Explore now!

Stay updated with all top Cities including, Bengaluru, Delhi, Mumbai and more across India. Stay informed on the latest happenings in World News along with Delhi Election 2025 and Delhi Election Result 2025 Live, New Delhi Election Result Live, Kalkaji Election Result Live at Hindustan Times.