At a time when the world is struggling to cope with the Coronavirus pandemic, a graphic claiming that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been appointed as the Chairman of the World Health Organisation (WHO), is going viral.
“भारत के प्रधानमंत्री मोदी जी पहली बार WHO का चेयरमैन बने..बधाइयां रुकनी नहीं चाहिए..” the text on the graphic read.
(Translation: Prime Minister of India, PM Modi, has become the chairman of WHO for the first time.)
At the time of filing the report, the above post had been shared by over 5,400 Facebook users.
FACT CHECK
NewsMobile fact-checked the above post and found it to be fake.
We ran a keyword search to verify the authenticity of the viral claim.
We found an article by Livemint, dated May 19, 2020, with the headline: ‘India elected to WHO’s decision making Executive Board, to be chair for 2020-21’.
To understand more on this subject, we checked the WHO website. According to the WHO website, the World Health Organization is governed by two decision-making bodies: the World Health Assembly and the Executive Board.
It said: The Executive Board is composed of 34 technically qualified members elected for three-year terms. The annual Board meeting is held in January when the members agree upon the agenda for the World Health Assembly and the resolutions to be considered by the Health Assembly.
We also found that Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Health and Family Welfare, India, was appointed as the Chairman of the Executive Board in the 147th session of the Board, held on May 22, 2020.
“Dr. Harsh Vardhan, who took over from Dr. Hiroki Nakatani of Japan, would chair the 148th session of the Executive Board in January 2021. At the Executive Board meeting in May 2021, he will hand over to the next chair from another WHO Region. However, he will continue to be a member of the Executive Board till 2023, ” the WHO statement read.
From the above information, we gather the following:
- India would chair the 148th session of the Executive Board in January 2021.
- However, that DOES NOT mean that PM Modi has been appointed as the chairman.
- In reality, Dr. Harsh Vardhan will be the chairman of the Executive Board for this session.
Hence, the viral claim in FAKE.
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