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Mumbai: In a speech to the Akhil Bhartiya Shiksha Sangh Adhiveshan in Gandhinagar, Gujarat on May 12, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the dropout rate in the state had gone from “around 40%” to “less than 3%”, quoting Chief Minister Bhupendrabhai Patel. But this claim is only partially true, as different government sources give different drop-out rates, and the secondary and higher secondary school drop-out rates are more than 3%.

Claim 1: 12 girls go missing every day in Rajasthan Fact: True The infographic in the tweet cited a 2022 report of CRY (Child Rights and You), a non-governmental organisation working with underprivileged children in India, for this claim. According to the CRY report, titled ‘Missing Children Report 2022’, which FactChecker has accessed, it is true that an average of 14 children, comprising 12 girls and two boys, were reported missing daily from Rajasthan.

To verify this, FactChecker visited Baba Raghav Das (BRD) Medical College, where doctors say most cases of encephalitis in Gorakhpur are treated, and found that though the number of cases and deaths have dropped between 2017 and 2023, the medical college reported 28 encephalitis deaths in 2022 and one death in 2023.

Mumbai: During an event to establish a textile park across Lucknow and Hardoi districts under the PM Mega Integrated Textile Sector and Apparel, Uttar Pradesh (UP) Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath praised his government for paving the way for UP's development through the construction of airports, highways and the maintenance of proper law and order. He criticised previous governments for tarnishing UP's reputation by allowing a poor law and order situation to prevail.

To verify the claim, FactChecker analysed election results published by the Election Commission of India (ECI) to find out how many states had received 50% or more share in votes. We found that the BJP had secured over 50% of the votes independently in 11 states and two Union Territories (UTs) in the 2019 General Assembly Elections. In two states, Uttar Pradesh and Tripura, the BJP received nearly 50% of the votes.

On March 22, 2023, the Prime Minister’s official account had tweeted about the spike in the number of internet users in rural India. The PMO’s account claimed that the number had exceeded urban internet users. “Ab bharat ke gaon mein internet users ki sankhya shehron mein rehne wale internet users se bhi adhik ho gayi hai,” the tweet claimed.

* For States /UTs with population less than 50 lakh and districts with population less than 2 lakh, the award amount shall be 50% of the amounts considered.

On March 12, 2023, the Indian National Congress (INC) shared a video on its Twitter page highlighting the hardships faced by farmers under the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government. The video had several claims about farmer debt, monthly income of farmers and cases of suicide among agricultural labourers and farmers. On verifying the claims against official data, FactChecker found two of these claims to be true, one to be false and one needed additional context. Our factcheck: True.

“Sugarcane farmers in Uttar Pradesh were forced to burn their crops and attempt suicide but in the last six years, no farmer in Uttar Pradesh has died by suicide,” the UP CM claimed while flagging off 77 tractors for farm machinery banks set up in cooperative sugarcane and sugar mill societies in Lucknow. This claim is false. The Bharatiya Janata Party came into power in the state in March 2017 and was re-elected in 2022.

In 2021, Meghalaya registered 3,428 crimes, according to data from the National Crime Records Bureau. This is a 13% reduction in crime since 2017 (3,952). But reported crimes have increased 24% in the ten-year period from 2012 to 2021. The number of violent crimes has marginally decreased in the state in the past ten years (from 625 in 2012 to 580 in 2021). However, reported crimes against women have increased 169%, from 255 in 2012 to 685 in 2021.