A short case study on how selective information is fed to the masses. Thread. 1/n

In 2017, amid great fanfare PM Modi had announced that India has ‘jumped’ to 8th place in the 2017 Global FDI Confidence Index. It was touted as a ‘Make in India’ milestone that India was in the ‘Top 10’. 2/n

Incidentally the ‘jump’ was only from 9th to 8th position. India used to be in the top 5 between 2010 to 2013 but this ‘small’ detail was not mentioned by anyone including the media which happily played along. 3/n

In 2018 and India slipped 3 places to 11th position. It was reported by media but the government was tight-lipped about it and ‘MakeInIndia’ continued to share 2017 rankings. 4/n

Then came 2019 and this time India slipped 5 spots to 16th position. It was one of the countries that recorded the biggest fall. This time the media was completely silent. 5/n

In 2014, when India had slipped from 5th to 7th place, it made headlines as ‘the lowest position in almost a decade’. In contrast, the news about the fall from 11th to 16th position was completely blacked out. 6/n

To put things in perspective, here are India’s 10yr rankings in ATKearney Global FDI Confidence Index 7/n:
2010 - 3
2011 - 2
2012 - 2
2013 - 5
2014 - 7
2015 - 11
2016 - 9
2017 - 8
2018 - 11
2019 - 16

We will hear about it again in 2020 depending on whether the rank improves. It is understandable that a government will share what makes it look good. But why is the media doing the same and acting like a PR arm of the govt? ‘When asked to bend, they crawled...’ 8/8