Is “Modi’s India” shining brighter in 2016 than in 2012 as DNA claimed based on NASA pictures?

NASA has released new maps showing full hemisphere views of Earth at night. According to NASA website, these maps provide the clearest yet composite view of the patterns of human settlement across our planet. They have also released a video stating “NASA scientists have just released the first new global map of Earth at night since 2012. This nighttime look at our home planet, dubbed the Black Marble, provides researchers with a unique perspective of human activities around the globe. By studying Earth at night, researchers can investigate how cities expand, monitor light intensity to estimate energy use and economic activity, and aid in disaster response.”

All the major Indian media houses wrote about these incredible looking maps on their websites. DNA wrote it too, but with a twist. In an article titled “India 2012 v/s India 2016: These pics from NASA shows Modi’s India is shining bright“, DNA compared the 2012 image of India previously released by NASA and the recently released 2016 image. Based on this comparison, they declared that since India look’s much brighter now, it is because the of rural electrification project that was announced by PM Modi in his Independence Day speech of 2015. According to PM’s announcement, all the remaining 18,452 villages would be electrified within 1,000 days, i.e. May 1st, 2018.

While the map does look brighter, has the rural electrification project caused ‘Modi’s India’ to shine brighter? According to official data supplied by Central Electricity Authority, India has a total of 5,97,464 villages, of which the electrification was pending in 18,452 villages which is about 3% with roughly 97% of electrification across India achieved before the present BJP Govt came into power.

Now since the map pictures are from 2016, we will take the latest available electrification data in 2016. According to a Dec 26, 2016, press release by Press Information Bureau, by December 25, 11,429 of the 18,452 villages had been electrified.

Thus, by the end of December 2016, 11,429 villages which constitute 1.9% of the total number of 5,97,464 villages in India had been electrified since the time the announcement was made on August 15, 2015. Can the folks on the News Desk at DNA actually quantify a 1.9% change with their naked eyes? Moreover, is the much brighter 2016 map only 1.9% more bright than the 2012 map considering that it is DNA’s claim that the rural electrification project that has made the change? The answer to both questions would be NO and NO.

There is no direction co-relation between the rural electrification project and the maps looking brighter as suggested by DNA. There is no technical information/data available based on which the 2012 and 2016 maps can be compared and any such comparison without actual data can only be rife with scientific inaccuracy. This is nothing but yet another attempt by yet another media organisation to suck up to the Government by projecting any random data as an achievement of Modi Govt without even the slightest concern regarding morality and ethics.

P.S. After we wrote the article, we also noticed that the power minister Piyush Goyal has also decided to come to the same unscientific conclusion as evident by this Facebook post on his page.

On Twitter too, he retweeted a post of a similar nature.

So, not only is DNA being unethical in its journalistic standards, India’s Power Minister Piyush Goyal thinks that a 1.9% change in rural electrification would actually show up on a map. Phew!