On 23 March 2015, the Minister of State (External Affairs) Gen V K Singh (retd) set the media and the opposition on fire when he posted the following tweets with hashtags: #Disgust and #Duty from his twitter handle after attending the Pakistan Day celebrations in the country’s high commission in New Delhi.
https://twitter.com/Gen_VKSingh/status/580044326392049664
https://twitter.com/Gen_VKSingh/status/580044682350055424
https://twitter.com/Gen_VKSingh/status/580044945416806401
The Pakistan National Day reception started at about 7 PM. Gen VK Singh (retd) left the High Commission within an hour without eating or drinking there. His first tweet appeared at 10:01 pm, and as soon as it was posted, it started attracting series of attacks and speculations from left, right and center. At 11:06 PM on the same night, Singh clarified that he was disgusted to see how media was twisting the fact:
https://twitter.com/Gen_VKSingh/status/580060601218527232
Singh was already asked about his representation at the Pakistani high commission in the morning, to which he replied:
The government of India had to sent an MoS. They sent me and I went there and came back,” he said replying to a question about his presence at the reception.
However, media kept twisting and spinning it with spicy headlines. Between 1:29 min and 1:40 min, Rahul Kanwal declared that these tweets were against Narendra Modi and Shiv Aroor confirmed that it was off course an open annoyance against Modi https://youtu.be/IIdm27D23bM?t=79 In case, the video is not working on this site, you may click the youtube link mentioned in it. In a press conference organized on 24 March 2015, Gen VK Singh said, ”Rahul Kanwal and his channel misinterpreted his statements.” However, Rahul Kanwal blatantly lied in his show (http://headlinestoday.intoday.in/programme/section-66a-shreya-singhal-scrapped-supreme-court-free-speech-social-media/1/425601.html) between 11:00 min and 11:40 minute by saying that he was just asking questions and not interpreting anything. If that was just a question, what does the declaration in the first video means, and what does the following tweet mean:
It was expected from Manish Tewari, as an opposition leader, to attack the ex-General and ask him to quit from his role, even after Singh clarified his tweet posted at the previous night:
https://twitter.com/ManishTewari/status/580186726922063872
https://twitter.com/ManishTewari/status/580399508556759041
However, media jumped, concluded and twisted the #disgust according to their convenience
https://twitter.com/ajaishukla/status/580325557335797760
https://twitter.com/BDUTT/status/580061585516826625
https://twitter.com/seemagoswami/status/580403175640965120
https://twitter.com/PrabhuChawla/status/580663751143219200
It is sad that the self-declared elitist media which boasts about ethics and sensibility of information sharing creates strong narratives and headlines after reading a 140 characters tweet.
*Special thanks to @CrimeMasterV2 for providing video links and information.