Amid all the major rumors regarding the Tokyo Olympics, another such news caught attention when netizens started raising their voice against the ‘absurdness of education policy’ which began following a post where the image reads the name of an educational institute as ‘Rajnikant Medical College of Engineering For Commerce & Arts’. Netizens shared the photo of the college entrance questioning the kind of subjects that will be taught in this institute.
The claim along with the image reads: ‘This is India’s new education policy. Can anybody explain what exactly is taught in this college’.
Entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw on August 1 tweeted this old morphed image of the management college which had been sarcastically renamed as ‘Rajinikanth Medical College of Engineering for Commerce and Arts’ after the Indian actor Rajinikanth. The image went viral with ‘can anybody explain what exactly is taught in this college?’ written over it. Mazumdar-Shaw tweeted the image with exclamation marks.
Another user also tweeted the same image, in which several students were seen entering the “Rajnikant Medical College of Engineering for Commerce & Arts”. A user commented that it is the world’s best college. Similarly, several other netizens enthusiastically shared the viral image believing that such a college offers diverse courses under one roof existed.
However, in this era of anomalous peculiarities, it was for a moment hard to figure out the authenticity of this viral image and a few netizens whether sarcastically or not believed this institution to the real. Thus to confirm the fact, a fact check was performed, as not everything we see or perceive is real.
On performing a reverse image search on the viral image an article was found by The Indian Express that was published on 22 March which carried a wider angle of the viral image. As per which the image was clicked when the state government under the orders of the Chief Minister Naveen Pattnaik imposed and the put the state under strict lockdown battling with COVID-19. The state adjudicated and sealed a business school in Bhubneshwar after 45 students tested positive.
The caption along with the image mentioned that it showed the Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB) in Odisha’s Bhubaneswar and attributed the photo to Wikimedia Commons. Further, on searching the website of Wikimedia Commons an image was found that had been uploaded on 16 February 2012.
On comparing the viral image with the original one, several similar elements were found such as the people who can be seen entering the campus. However, the name of the college in the original photo had been morphed to add ‘Rajnikant Medical College of Engineering For Commerce & Arts’ in the viral one.
Memes in the name of versatile actor, Rajinikanth are not a new thing on social media as several fan pages and accounts operating in the superstar’s name share them often. A Facebook page was also found by the name Rajnikanth’s Medical College of Engineering for Commerce which shares such memes.
Thus, the viral image is morphed and no such educational institute exists in real. Furthermore, the original image is from the Xavier Institute of Management (XIMB) from Bhubneshwar, Odisha.
