A Philippines’ river choked with plastic is passed off as Mithi River of Mumbai.
Several social media sites witnessed a post getting viral where we can see the audience claiming, an image of a river full of plastic waste is of Mithi River in Mumbai. This began when Mrs. Preeti Gandhi uploaded a tweet with a collage of two rivers namely Sabarmati and Mithi. Where one river is full of plastic and the other one is fully cleaned.
Claim: Gujrat government spent a whopping amount of Rupees 1400 crores to clean the river Sabarmati. BMC & MMRDA spent 1000+ crores in cleaning the river Mithi yet it is full of plastic waste.
Pic 1 – Sabaramati Riverfront, Ahmedabad, Gujarat
(Fund spent by Gujarat State: ₹1400 crores)
Pic 2 – Mithi River,
Mumbai, Maharashtra(Funds spent by BMC & MMRDA: ₹1000+ crores)#TaleOfTwoCities #ModiHaiToMumkinHai pic.twitter.com/kt6sFsz3fV
— Priti Gandhi – प्रीति गांधी (@MrsGandhi) June 27, 2021
Mrs. Preeti Gandhi can be seen directly comparing the work of two individual state governments to clean the rivers. BMC and MMRDA the government bodies of Mumbai are being indirectly criticized for their lack of efforts to clean the river. Adding to this, the post even gives a glimpse of the financial budget used by the Gujrat and Mumbai authorities to clean the respective rivers. On the left side is the image of the river Sabarmati and to the right is the river Mithi.
After this more people posted about the same, claiming that the river full of plastic is river Mithi which hasn’t been cleaned and managed well by the Mumbai authority.
Pic 1 – Sabaramati Riverfront, Ahmedabad, Gujarat
(Fund spent by Gujarat State: ₹1400 crores)
Pic 2 – Mithi River,
Mumbai, Maharashtra(Funds spent by BMC & MMRDA: ₹1000+ crores)#TaleOfTwoCities #ModiHaiToMumkinHai pic.twitter.com/z9Zrbah3lt
— Sarraff TANUJ 🇮🇳 (@sarraff_tanuj) June 27, 2021
Pic 1 – Sabaramati Riverfront, Ahmedabad, Gujarat
(Fund spent by Gujarat State: ₹1400 crores)
Pic 2 – Mithi River,
Mumbai, Maharashtra(Funds spent by BMC & MMRDA: ₹1000+ crores)#TaleOfTwoCities #ModiHaiToMumkinHai @narendramodi @KhanSaumitra @Amitava_BJP @tjt4002 pic.twitter.com/CAbLeNLDnI
— Rishab Sarkar 🇮🇳🚩 (@RishabBjym) June 27, 2021
ON twitter while posting the tweet people were found using hashtags to praise Modi and his leadership in Gujarat #ModiHaiTohMumkinHai (It’s possible due to Modi). In simple words, we can observe citizens giving out a positive attitude towards him, and their trust towards him is reflected through their hashtags and statements.
People took their Facebook accounts to upload the same. People were criticizing Mumbai government bodies for their unmanaged and lethargic attitude. On the other hand, they were praising Modi and Gujrat government for their timely efforts. Groups like Modi Fan Club posted the same image and caption.
https://m.facebook.com/groups/1687285394853733/permalink/2903486373233623/
Truth
The image with water pollution, claimed as Mithi River is actually from Philippines
While finding the truth and after doing the reverse image search we found out that the image on the right filled with plastic waste is MALINA BAY of the Philippines. The image of this polluted bay is being used as a disguise to the Mithi river of Mumbai.
Here is the proof to withstand the fact that the image of the plastic-covered river is of MALINA BAY Philippines.
https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/manila-philippines-january-6-river-garbage-81096307
We then decided to dig more on the matter and found BBC article dating back to 13th June 2019.
BBC The world’s leading public service broadcaster did a story on pollution and can digital payment give spark to clean-up revolution. The article talks about water pollution and the future of digital modes of payments to help poor countries to raise funds for the cleaning procedure of the waterways.
Furthermore, during our research, we found that In 2019, Erik Solheim chief mentor @gaspworld (GLOBAL ALLIANCE FOR SUSTAINABLE PLANET) who is also the president at Green Belt and Road Institute posted about the worsening condition of Malina bay covered fully in plastic long with the image.
Poorer communities in the developing world bear the brunt of plastic pollution. Could a new digital payment system spark a clean-up revolution? Promising innovation in Manila, the Phillippines. 🇵🇭https://t.co/axjunn9Ued pic.twitter.com/ZmPDlfaboq
— Erik Solheim (@ErikSolheim) June 20, 2019
The image definitely doesn’t belong to the river Mithi, but this doesn’t mean that the river is fully cleaned. For since past many years still it is polluted with waste materials. The BMC & MMRDA haven’t done much to make the river pollution-free. They have the budget and manpower too but there is no much change and it is still polluting, even today due to the reckless attitude of the Higher authorities towards the cleanliness of the river. Also, the citizens and industries are the culprits in making the river polluted to such an extent.
There were people assuming and accepting this false informative tweet as factual, at the same time we can observe responsible citizens of the country who were correcting Mrs. Preeti Gandhi for the false information.
https://twitter.com/Samiran__Das/status/1409105976167256077?s=19
If people start becoming active and try to cross the information before believing and posting or forwarding it, this small step can help us tackle the fake news and information in this digitally advanced world.
