Fadia's claim true? Govt says it appointed 4 brand ambassadors for Digital India in July

New Delhi: Amid flip-flops on the appointment of Digital India brand ambassadors, the government on Tuesday clarified that it had appointed four persons for a year during the Digital India week on 1-7 July and no other person has been appointed thereafter. On Monday, Ankit Fadia, the self-proclaimed “ethical hacker”, said he has been appointed the brand ambassador of Digital India on 1 July. He also posted a picture of the certificate on Facebook, prompting the social media to get into an overdrive. [caption id=“attachment_2218704” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Representational image. Digital India website[/caption] “As part of the Digital India week (July 1-7, 2015), four brand ambassadors were nominated for a period of one year to propagate the product and applications are being launched by the department under the Digital India programme,” an official statement said. Those who have been picked as the brand ambassadors are Satwat Jagwani, all-India IIT-JEE—Advanced Topper 2015, Krati Tiwari, IIT-JEE —Advanced Girl Topper 2015, Fadia, and Pranav Mistry, a computer scientist and the author of ‘6th Sense’. “Thereafter, no other person has been appointed as Brand Ambassador for Digital India,” the statement said. The statement further added that services of these brand ambassadors will be used, as and when required, to generate mass awareness for the programme. The government issued a denial in the morning on Tuesday which stated, “There were certain news reports that there is move to appoint a brand ambassador for the Digital India Programme of the government. This is to clarify that there has been no such move to appoint a brand ambassador as reported.” The government though withdrew it a few hours later and issued a fresh statement in the evening. “When the Prime Minister announced the Digital India programme in Delhi, I was invited to that and I received a certificate as one of the brand ambassadors of the programme,” Fadia told PTI on Monday. PTI