A post showing a comparison between two photographs is going viral to claim that one of them was captured in China which shows a machine cleaning the sewer and the other one is from India showing a man cleaning the sewer.
How did we find out the truth?: We performed a reverse image search on the image and this led us to a video report published by DW News shared on 8 April 2022.
It stated that this machine named 'Bandicoot' is cleaning a sewer pipe in Mysuru, Karnataka.
A tech company in Kerala developed it to address the problem of manual scavenging.
It also mentioned that manual scavenging remains prevalent due to lack of machinery and the lower cost of labour.
We also found the same visual in a Hindi video report shared by DW News.
Taking a cue, we performed a relevant keyword search on Google and found several other reports about the Bandicoot machine. These can be seen here, here and here.
It also stated that the Bandicoot project was designed by nine engineers from Kerala and was launched in February 2018 after a successful run in Thiruvananthapuram.
It also won the Aarohan Social Innovation Gold Award instituted by the Infosys Foundation.
We found no reports which linked this machine to China.
Conclusion: An image of a robotic machine cleaning sewers in India has been falsely linked to China.
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