Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
Claim
Rastriya Swatantra Party Member of Parliament (MP) Toshima Karki takes a swipe at Education Minister Sumana Shrestha after their relations turned sour.
Fact
Viral video shows lawmaker Toshima Karki pointing fingers at the flaws prevalent in the Health Ministry while speaking at a parliamentary committee.
A video claiming that Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) lawmaker Toshima Karki had a breach in relation with her party lawmaker and Education Minister Sumana Shrestha, is going viral on TikTok. Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
TikTok user @realhanuman posted a video showing RSP leader Dr Toshima Karki speaking at a meeting. Text superimposed on the video reads, “Toshima has a serious disagreement with Minister Sumana.” The video also shows visuals of Education Minister Sumana Shrestha and Home Minister and RSP Chair Rabi Lamichhane attending the event.
In the video, Toshima allegedly speaks to Education Minister Sumana Shrestha and says, “I would like to urge the minister to collect data and conduct research for a month because the Health Ministry doesn’t have the data. It is essential to have clear-cut classified data illustrating the types of diseases and the affected area in all over Nepal. And I don’t think the ministry has clear data on the number of vacancies in different hospitals across the country. Another thing is that the government needs to have the data on various health equipment available in hospitals and their current status…”
The video posted on June 12 has garnered 19.2k likes, 148 users have shared it and 333 people have commented.
The archived version of the TikTok video can be seen here.
Newschecker found the claim to be misleading.
Fact Check /Verification
To check the authenticity of the claim made in the viral video, Newschecker took several keyframes from the viral video and ran reverse searches on them. A search led us to a video, dated June 11, 2024, posted on the YouTube channel named ‘Artha Khabar’. On checking the video, we found that the video frame from 1.4-minute onwards exactly matched the viral video. However, we didn’t see any visual of Education Minister Sumana Shrestha attending the apparent meeting of the Parliamentary committee on Health.
Further, taking clues from the video, we conducted a search on YouTube and found a video, dated June 10, 2024, published on the YouTube channel named Right Sanchar. The video frame from 2.46-minute onwards resembled the viral video. On checking the video thoroughly, we found that Toshima Karki was aiming her question to Health Minister Pradeep Yadav, who also responded to RSP lawmaker Karki at the meeting.
We also found that RSP leader Karki was speaking at the Education, Health and Information Technology Committee of the Parliament as the video also showed the committee Chairman Amar Bahadur Thapa with the name plate.
Thus, our findings clearly showed that Toshima Karki was pointing at the flaws prevalent in the country’s health sector and drawing the attention of the Health Minister during a parliamentary committee meeting.
Further, we found another video, dated June 10, 2024, and published on the YouTube channel named Netra Khabar, from the same parliamentary meeting where Minister Yadav can be seen responding to Dr Karki. We also found that the viral video falsely edited unrelated visuals of Sumana Karki and Home Minister Rabi Lamichhane.
Conclusion
No, the viral video doesn’t show RSP lawmaker Dr Toshima Karki taking a swipe at Education Minister and RSP lawmaker Sumana Shrestha. The video actually shows Karki pointing at the flaws prevalent in the Health Ministry while speaking at a meeting of the parliamentary committee on health.
Result: False
Sources
Artha Khabar, June 11, 2024
Right Sanchar, June 10, 2024
Netra Khabar, June 10, 2024
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Sanjeeb Phuyal is the Nepali Editor of Newschecker based in Kathmandu, Nepal. He brings over a decade of experience writing and editing news. In his previous stint, he worked as online editor for The Kathmandu Post. With the growth of social media platforms—and the ever-growing competition amongst media outlets to churn out breaking news, he feels that fact-checking every piece of information has become more essential today than ever before.
