After Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award has been renamed as Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award, an image poster congratulating PM Modi for this move started doing rounds on social media. The poster also contained picture of a medal.
Facebook users shared the image poster with the text, “Khel Ratna Award has now been renamed as Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna Award as a mark of tribute to the Indian legend. Thank you, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for supporting the idea of millions of Indians. ”
The Facebook posts can be seen here, here and here.
The same was also shared by multiple ministries and BJP leaders. The archive of their posts can be seen here, here, here and here.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the post and found that the picture of the medal used in the image poster is NOT of Khel Ratna.
Many Twitter users posted that the picture of the medal used in the poster is that of Param Vir Chakra and not Khel Ratna.
We ran a search and found more information regarding Param Vir Chakra on the website of The Indian Air Force.
On the website, the description of the medal read, “Circular in shape, made of bronze, one and three eighth inches in diameter and on obverse, four replicas of “Indra’s Vajra” with the State Emblem (including the motto), embossed in the centre. On its reverse, it shall have embossed Param Vir Chakra both in Hindi and English with two lotus flowers between Hindi and English. The fitting will be swivel mounting.”
We then ran a search using relevant keywords and found pictures of the actual Khel Ratna medal on the Getty Images website. The pictures can be seen here, here, here, here and here.
A comparison between the two shows the difference between Param Vir Chakra and Khel Ratna Medal.
Hence, from the above information, we can conclude that the picture of the medal used in the image poster is incorrect.
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