On Thursday, PM Narendra Modi did an aerial survey of flooded Chennai to take stock of the situation. Even as his government announced an immediate assistance of Rs 1,000 crore to the Tamil Nadu government, the Press Information Bureau circulated an image on Twitter showing the PM looking at the inundated houses from an aircraft.

Soon after the image was tweeted, a few sharp users caught something unusual -- the image was doctored aka photoshopped.

Modi did take a aerial survey but in the image circulated by PIB, the view from Windows was changed to show houses and water in more clarity than what was visible in the original image. It is not clear why PIB photoshopped the image.

The press agency later deleted the photo.

Here is the image that PIB had tweeted out.



Here is the comparison between the two images, as posted by Tanvi Madan on Twitter.



Editing of news images, possibly to bring the news in sharp focus, on some occasions literally, is not new. In the past there have been occasions when doctored photos have often been found on social media sites.

In Chennai, Modi said that people of Chennai would get all support they need. "The government of India stands shoulder to shoulder with the people of Tamil Nadu in this hour of need," he said .

Recently, Reuters banned RAW photos and asked its photographers to only click JPEGs, which show editing effects far prominently and hence can be filtered out. "As eyewitness accounts of events covered by dedicated and responsible journalists, Reuters Pictures must reflect reality. While we aim for photography of the highest aesthetic quality, our goal is not to artistically interpret the news," the news agency had said.

