A post (here, here, and here) with a Hindustan Times news clip about Infosys founder Narayana Murthy advocating limited interaction between young boys and girls for success is doing the rounds on social media. This shows the headline of the purported Hindustan Times article and a summary blurb in which Murthy was quoted advising GenZ to focus on hustling and building the nation instead of getting into relationships. We fact-check this claim through this article.
Claim: Narayana Murthy advocates limited interaction between young boys and girls for success- Hindustan Times article.
Fact: Hindustan Times did not publish this article. In a statement refuting the claim, Hindustan Times said this news clip is edited. Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
To check the veracity of the claim, we performed a keyword search on the internet. This search did not yield any news reports about Narayana Murthy making this purported statement. Hindustan Times has also not reported any such story.
During this search, we found an ‘X’ post (archive link) by Hindustan Times refuting the viral claim. Through this post, they clarified that the viral graphic is digitally edited. Additionally, they stated that their legal team is ‘actively addressing the matter.’
Furthermore, we found a Hindustan Times article published on 16 December 2024 about Narayana Murthy defending his 70-hour workweek idea. This article contains the same photo seen in the viral graphic.
The difference between this (along with other Hindustan Times articles) and the viral graphic is that it contains a ‘dateline,’ which is not present in the viral graphic. You can observe this distinction in the following graphic.
In this regard, India Today reported that the executive assistant to Murthy, AG Panduranga, told them that Narayana Murthy has never said this.
To sum up, an edited graphic is shared as a real news report published by Hindustan Times on Narayana Murthy advocating limited interaction between boys and girls for success.
