Newslaundry reached out to the journalists who had their bylines in the pieces. While two of them refused to speak, two other reporters did not respond to our calls. The newspaper’s executive editor, Bodhisattva Ganguli, was also not reachable for a comment.
In “A Tech-tonic shift towards transparency”, which carried Vatsala Gaur’s byline, the story began with UP’s large population and how the state has to deal with corruption in government processes.
It went on to say how now, with “widespread adoption of technology”, the state is seen to be making “significant strides in the area of egovernance, boosting transparency and efficiency”.
It continued: “A telling example of the state’s success in ensuring almost cent percent adherence to the DBT principle being driven by the centre, is the ease of compensation to farmers and landowners whose lands have been acquired for various expressways. Social experts conducting impact assessments have vouched that the beneficiaries got their due within a week, directly into their registered accounts, when compensation due to some for national highways constructed 15-20 years ago is still pending.”
While there were data points mentioned, there was no social expert or farmer quoted in the story but instead, the additional chief secretary of information, Navneet Sehgal.
A story titled “Not just Taj, get ready to explore other wonders” described how Kushinagar international airport, inaugurated by prime minister Narendra Modi earlier this month, will put the state on the global tourism map.
The lead story of the four-page package, headlined “Industrial route to higher growth”, was about how Uttar Pradesh is “targeting greater and geographically spread industrialization to raise economic growth and lift incomes of poorer regions, promising a liberal investment policy and better infrastructures to investors.”