There was a report in major English dailies and their websites over the tall claims of Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu on making Andhra Pradesh into one of the top 10 investment destinations in the world.
The media reports quoted Naidu as telling his party functionaries on the occasion of achieving No. 1 spot in the Ease of Doing Business that Andhra Pradesh was now the only state to be ranked, at 51, in the global competitiveness index of the World Economic Forum, where India's rank is 56. Switzerland is number one in the global ranking, followed by Singapore.
"We have to benchmark those countries and aim to reach the top. Pick up the best practices from those countries and try to implement them here," the reports quoted Naidu as saying. He also claimed that by 2022, Andhra Pradesh aims to improve its ranking to 38 from the current 51.
Unfortunately, all the dailies blindly reported what Naidu had said without even verifying whether his claims were correct or not.
The fact of the matter is that the World Economic Forum report did not make any mention of Andhra Pradesh in the global competitiveness index.
According to the report, it was Mexico which is in 51st rank, not Andhra Pradesh. India stands in 39th position, whereas Slovania is in 56th rank. In fact, the WEF gives comparison among the countries and not the states of a country.
Being a politician, Naidu can make any claim for his own image-boosting, but media has the responsibility to verify what he said. Isn’t it?
