‘Factchecker’ gets it wrong: Fact-checks PM Modi based on misreporting of passport rules

Yesterday, PTI reported that PM Modi had made an announcement regarding the passport rules: PM @narendramodi says women need not change their names in passport after marriage anymore: Press Trust of India pic.twitter.com/Dd85weMTdt — NDTV April 13, 2017 On the face of it, this is a welcome move cutting read tape. It’ll be their discretion to use father/mother’s name in passport: PM pic.twitter.com/EsKwbv3BIc — ANI April 13, 2017 It appears that PM Modi is referring to the changes in the passport rules notified by the external affairs ministry in December 2016. There is a small but subtle difference: contrary to what PTI reported, PM Modi never said “women need not change their names in passport after marriage anymore”. Factchecker, instead of checking the facts, trusted the NDTV tweet of the PTI quote as gospel truth, and on that basis ran a story whose title said that Modi had got something wrong.