Ankit from IIT: NDTV's new best friend?

The controversy over yoga in Central schools is a short one. There were some moves to make the attendance for yoga classes compulsory for the students, perhaps with the knowledge that most students would never show up for a six am yoga class voluntarily. The media highlighted instances of schools ordering their students to attend and the issue began to snowball. And things seemed to have been changed later on.

The HRD Ministry quickly clarified that it would be an optional subject, like many others, and would be graded at 80% practical when it came to marks. The issue can be summed by NDTV's tale of two circulars.

While the issue died nearly as quickly as it began, Twitter did manage to have some fun out of it.

It all began when Barkha Dutt, NDTV's editor, declared -

Ankit from IIT Roorkee writes to me with circular from Dean that says its "compulsory,mandatory" to attend Yoga camp

— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) June 22, 2015

Now, it's a bit odd for a national level editor to be take the word of some student, rather than the school authorities themselves. Or perhaps Barkha happened to know this student. We will never know that one, since this little exchange quickly followed -

@gdiitr2005 ok please argue it out with your college mate Ankit :-)

— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) June 22, 2015

And this is where the fun began, since such a vague reply was naturally taken as a sign that it was open season on Barkha.

Here are some of the gems that followed -

Don't you dare ask @BDUTT or @ndtv to reveal sources ... @gdiitr2005

— Category5Moron (@Category5Moron) June 22, 2015

"Ankit from IIT Roorkee" is omnipresent "Sources" for BDutt etc... ;)

— AshDubey_ (@AshDubey_) June 22, 2015

Very few know that Ankit from IIT-Roorkee is a visiting prof at Adarsh Liberal Institute of Journalistic Arts. He teaches Advanced BS.

— IndiaSpeaks (@IndiaSpeaksPR) June 22, 2015

Now you know what NDTV means when it says, "sources told NDTV". It is basically Ankit from IIT Roorkee

— Oldtimer (@auldtimer) June 22, 2015

It didn't take long for some wag to point out that perhaps Ankit from IIT was actually from IIN. (That would be the much mocked university from the Idea cellphone network ads. The joke is that IINs are not...very bright.)

Ankit from IIN wrote to me that he was forced to watch yoga videos on his smartphone by IIN Dean.

— Rahul Roushan (@rahulroushan) June 22, 2015

In the end, NDTV was not wrong in its coverage, and there really was some confusion about whether it was mandatory for students to attend yoga classes or not, but such details rarely stop Twitter from having a little snicker.