The manipulation of AP media has reached ultimate proportions under the Jaganmohan Reddy government. Now, it is the turn of The Hindu English newspaper to get caught in the Amaravati Capital controversy. The Hindu innocently published a story stating that the IIT Madras engineers’ team studied and recommended against constructing Capital buildings in Amaravati.

The paper story said that 70 per cent of Amaravati Capital City is flood-prone as per the IIT Madras experts. Reacting sharply to this, the Amaravati farmers wrote emails to IIT Madras Director and Dean who replied that their institute had not done any study on Amaravati Capital. The IIT Madras clarified that they had no meteorology department or expertise to conduct such expert studies on huge construction projects.

This triggered allegations from the TDP that the ruling YCP leaders deliberately got anti-Amaravati reports published in the English dailies. This is done in the name of observations made in the Boston Consultancy Group report. Interestingly, it was the Boston report which mentioned for the first time about IIT Madras Amaravati study. Analysts say that Jagan Reddy is bent on using reports in The Hindu to push through his Capital shifting move. The English media is being criticised for not cross checking with IIT Madras before writing such reports.