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| - Fact Check: This is not Nirmala Sitharaman with Jayalalithaa in vintage pic
A black-and-white image of J Jayalalithaa along with another woman has gone viral with the claim that this is a rare picture of the former Tamil Nadu chief minister and Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
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India Today Fact Check
This is the photograph of Jayalalithaa with famous Tamil writer Sivasankari. Both were good friends. This picture was taken by photographer Ravi Verma V for a Tamil magazine.
A black-and-white image of J Jayalalithaa along with another woman has gone viral with the claim that this is a rare picture of the former Tamil Nadu chief minister and Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman.
Several Facebook users have shared the picture with the caption, “A rare photo of Jayalalithaa and our present Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman”.
India Today Anti Fake News War Room (AFWA) has found that this is a picture of Jayalalithaa with famous Tamil writer Sivasankari. Both were good friends. This picture was taken by photographer Ravi Verma V for a Tamil magazine.
The archived versions of the posts can be seen here, here, here and here.
AFWA investigation
At the bottom right corner of the image is printed “kliked by stills ravi”. A simple Google search with the phrase “stills ravi” reveals that veteran photographer Ravi Varma V is also known as “Stills Ravi” as per his social media accounts.
Last year, when this image went viral along with the same misleading claim that this was Jayalalithaa along with Sitharaman, Ravi Varma on his Facebook account cleared the doubt, saying the photograph was taken by him. In a reply to a comment, he had said that the woman with Jayalalithaa is author “Shivasankari”.
https://www.facebook.com/stills.ravi/posts/10160018491179478
Fact-check website “Boom Live” spoke to the photographer who confirmed that she was author Sivasankari along with Jayalalithaa and he had clicked it for a Tamil magazine.
Sivasankari Chandrasekaran is a noted Tamil writer and activist whose literary life spans over four decades. She has authored 36 novels, 48 short novels and 150 short stories. Among other literary works, she has also penned two biographies of Indira Gandhi and legendary engineer GD Naidu.
From several articles and past interviews, it can be understood that Sivasankari had a close friendship with Jayalalithaa.
An old black-and-white photo of Sitharaman in this “Asianet News” report shows that the woman in the viral picture with Jayalalithaa is clearly not her.
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