Info centre tweets pic of Greenwich maritime museum as Mumbai’s

In yet another embarrassment for the government, the official Twitter handle of the Maharashtra Information Centre of the Government of Maharashtra published a photo of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, and claimed it was the National Maritime Museum in Bombay (now known as Mumbai).

Shockingly, nobody from the state government seems to have noticed the Union Jack (British) flag atop the museum building. This photograph was tweeted on December 3, at 6.49 pm, and was first noticed by Rajendra Bhaduri, who promptly posted it on his Facebook page, with a tongue-in-cheek comment: “LO KALLO BAAT. Official Twitter handle of Maharashtra Information Centre. Government Of Maharashtra. New Delhi publishes photo of National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London claiming it to be in Bombay, set up by the Indian Navy. You can clearly see the "Union Jack" atop the building!! Ye toh sab ke sab Feku hai rey.”

–Bhaduri tagged a few people, including Pratik Sinha, the founder of Alt News, an online portal that has consistently exposed the fake news spread by the Information Technology cell of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and both, the centre and state governments.

He got some reactions, one being from Arup Chanda, who slammed the fake news circulated online by the government. “Don't think these are a bunch of ignorant idiots at all. This kind of false propaganda to fool the people is meticulously planned by the BJP IT cell, which directs the information officers of state governments which they control,” said Chanda.

However, such is the callous approach of this official Twitter handle, a search using the keywords, ‘National Maritime Museum’, as mentioned by Alt News, yields a post dated, August 11, 2017, stating: “National Maritime Museum #Mumbai, setup by #IndianNavy. Preserves the historical treasures obtained from other countries #VisitMaharashtra,” Maha Info Centre.