Sudhir Chaudhary airs misleading footage on Doordarshan debut show ‘decode’
New Delhi: On his debut show for state-run broadcaster Doordarshan, senior anchor Sudhir Chaudhary aired unrelated and outdated videos, falsely claiming they showed Indian air defence systems thwarting Pakistani attacks. The show, titled Decode, premiered on DD News at 9 PM on 15 May 2025.
Around the 15:25-minute mark of the episode, Chaudhary presented visuals of missile strikes, stating that India’s armed forces had cornered Pakistan. However, Alt News found that the footage was from an Iranian missile strike on Israel’s Nevatim airbase in October 2024. The same video was uploaded by DD India on YouTube on 2 October 2024, captioned as an Iranian attack on the Negev Desert airbase.
Later in the show, at the 26:48-minute mark, Chaudhary claimed that Pakistan had attacked Indian cities and airbases, but these attacks were foiled by Indian air defence systems, including the indigenous “Akashteer.” During this narration, visuals of an aerial combat over a night sky were shown. This video, too, has no connection to the India-Pakistan conflict. It had previously gone viral during the conflict and was fact-checked by Alt News as a 2021 video of Israel’s Iron Dome system.
Interestingly, the version of the Decode episode now available on YouTube has this portion edited out. The clip now starts with Chaudhary saying, “जैसे-जैसे समय बढ़ रहा है, इस युद्ध की नई-नई डिटेल्स सामने आ रहा है… मेड इन इंडिया है, और इसका नाम है आकाशतीर,” indicating that the previous claims and visuals were removed. However, a social media user who recorded the original telecast on her TV shared the unedited clip, confirming the misleading segment.
Sudhir Chaudhary’s debut on DD News comes after Prasar Bharati signed a reported ₹15-crore annual contract with him for the weekday show. His previous stint with Aaj Tak had also begun with a misquote falsely attributed to Mark Twain, which Alt News debunked.
Over the years, Chaudhary has faced several fact-checks by Alt News, including for falsely accusing MP Mahua Moitra of plagiarism, misreporting on the Kathua case, spreading communal narratives like “jihad” charts, and misrepresenting farmers' protest leaders. In February 2025, the NBDSA had also asked Aaj Tak to remove an entire episode of Black & White anchored by Chaudhary over content that violated LGBTQIA+ dignity.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Karnataka by-polls: Cong ahead in Bagalkot, BJP leads in Davanagere South
Bengaluru (PTI): Trends show Congress and BJP have maintained leads respectively in Karnataka's Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly seats, where counting of votes is underway on Monday, for the bypolls held for two seats on April 9.
The polls were necessitated by the deaths of senior Congress MLAs H Y Meti (Bagalkot) and Shamanur Shivashankarappa (Davanagere South).
According to the Election Commission, Congress party's Umesh Meti was ahead of BJP's Veerabhadrayya Charantimath by a margin of 9,969 votes in Bagalkot.
In Davanagere South, BJP's Srinivas T Dasakariyappa was leading over Congress party's Samarth Mallikarjun by a margin of 8,539 votes.
Nine and 25 candidates were in the fray, respectively in the Bagalkot and Davanagere South Assembly segments.
