By Srijit Das
An old photo of a group of people on a beach carrying placards that spell out "#StopAdani" is doing rounds on social media falsely claiming that the image is from a recent protest in Australia against embattled Indian billionaire Gautam Adani.
The photo is going viral even as Adani Group stocks take a battering after a New York based shortseller published a report in January accusing the Indian conglomerate of "brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud " over decades. The crisis has spooked investors and also shrunk the fortune of Gautam Adani, founder and chairman of the group, who was previously ranked as the world's third richest person by Forbes but has now fallen to the 15th spot.
BOOM found the picture dates back to 2017. The photo was taken at Congo Beach, Eurobodalla, New South Wales, Australia where locals were protesting against the Adani Australia's then yet-to-be built Carmichael coal mine in Queensland.
The photo is captioned as, "Protests in Australia against Adani! It’s spreading like wildfire! Only the Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) and the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) mutely following orders from their masters!"
Click here to view the post.
Click here to view the post.
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Fact Check
BOOM ran a reverse image search of the picture and came across a similar photo in a 2017 article mentioning it to be from a protest that took place against Gautam Adani's coal mining venture in Australia.
Taking a cue, we ran a keyword search for "Stop Adani Protest in Australia" and found a page on image hosting site Flickr carrying the same picture taken on October 7, 2017.
The picture description reads, "7 October 2017 Congo Beach, Eurobodalla, New South Wales 250 Eurobodalla people came to Congo Beach today to demand the federal government halt Adani’s enormous proposed coal mine in North Queensland. Eurobodalla people care for our coast and our bush, making the changes that Australia needs with solar panels, sustainable houses and reducing our energy use. Eurobodalla Shire Council has reduced its emissions by 25% and is on track to 100% renewable electricity by 2030. Our council is saving millions of dollars by changing to renewables. The federal government should wake up to itself and see what we are doing here. CREDIT: Gillianne Tedder".
We also found another image from the protest was tweeted by Australian journalist Daniel Doody on October 9, 2017.
Click here to view the tweet.
Adani's mining arm in Australia, which proposed the Carmichael mine in 2010, produced its first coal shipment in December 2021, after being plagued by years of protests by locals and environmental activists worried about carbon emissions and negative impact on the Great Barrier Reef.
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