Art of manipulating the truth
Politicians have always been famous for manipulating the truth or lying by telling the truth. For example, consider this. A journalist asked a minister, “Have you provided employment to the youth as per your election promise?” The minister answered, “we have given employment letters to 70000 youth last week”. Here the minister is telling the truth (70000 employment letters given), without answering the question. He did not even clarify whether these 70000 youth have actually been given jobs or just been promised a job in the future. In this way, the minister lied by telling a plain truth- manipulated it to suit his convenience. A similar pattern often plays out in economic statistics, where data may be technically correct but presented in a way that conveys a misleadingly optimistic picture. The blockbuster GDP data for 1QFY26, released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) last Friday, prima facie appears an example of manipulated truth . According to NSO, the Indian economy ...