Some Indian newspapers recently published an advertisement for an event in New Delhi where various boarding schools will come together for interaction with guardians and on-spot registration. The ad contained the image of a white building.
On September 30 2023, The Times Of India published the ad on the second page of its supplementary, Delhi Times. The ad states that "The Mega Gathering of India's Leading Boarding Schools" will be held on October 1 and October 2 in New Delhi.
Hindustan Times also published the advertisement on the second page of its 'Delhi City' edition on October 1, 2023.
Fact Check
Soon after the ad was published, the German ambassador to India and Bhutan, Dr Philipp Ackermann, posted a newspaper clipping of the advertisement on X and pointed out that the building shown in the ad was the seat of the German President in Berlin. He wrote, "Dear Indian parents - I found this in today's newspaper. But this building is no boarding school! It is the seat of the German President in Berlin. Our Rashtrapati Bhavan as it were. There are good boarding schools also in Germany - but here, no child will be admitted."
We performed a keyword search on Google and found the official website of the German Federal President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, which revealed that the white edifice depicted in the ad is the Bellevue Palace in Germany. It states that the palace was built in the late 18th century and has been the Federal President's principal official residence since 1994. "Situated at the edge of the Tiergarten, not far from the German Bundestag and the Federal Chancellery, the palace is surrounded by a spacious park bordering the River Spree. The Victory Column monument is just down the road. It was Theodor Heuss, the first President of the Federal Republic of Germany, who made Schloss Bellevue his official Berlin residence alongside Villa Hammerschmidt in Bonn as a symbol of Germany's aspirations for reunification." states the official website.
A comparison between the image used in the ad and the official image of the Bellevue Palace in Germany reveals that both images are identical and that the grey colour of the palace roof (in the original image) was changed to red in the image used in the advertisement.
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To sum up, an advertisement by the Affairs Education Group was published in leading English dailies, where the Bellevue Palace in Germany was shown as a boarding school in India.
Ironically, Hindustan Times had carried a report on the German ambassador fact-checking the ad a day before publishing the misleading advertisement on its 'Delhi City' page.
Abira Das is an intern at Alt News.
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