NYT Apologises for Mocking India’s Mars Mission

Oct 08, 2014 Tushita Politics 0

Days after it published an offensive cartoon mocking India’s successful Mars mission, The New York Times apologised on Monday, saying it was not trying to “impugn” India.t

The New York Times has apologised for a cartoon on India’s Mars Orbiter Mission, following criticism that it insulted India. The cartoon — which showed a rustic farmer leading a cow by a rope knocking on the door of an ‘Elite Space Club’ through whose window two western gentlemen wearing suits can be seen lounging on couches — was panned for being racist and for stereotyping Indians.

NYT Apologises for Mocking India’s Mars Mission

The cartoon was carried with an article titled ‘India’s Budget Mission to Mars’, a reference to the frugality of the Mission, which was achieved at a tenth of the cost of NASA’s Maven, which entered the Martian orbit just ahead of Mangalyaan.

“A large number of readers have complained about a recent editorial cartoon in The International New York Times, about India’s foray into space exploration. The intent of the cartoonist, Heng Kim Song, was to highlight how space exploration is no longer the exclusive domain of rich, Western countries,” Andrew Rosenthal, Editorial Page Editor, wrote on The New York Times’s Facebook page.

“We apologise to readers who were offended by the choice of images in this cartoon. Heng was in no way trying to impugn India, its government or its citizens. We appreciate that readers have shared their feedback, which we welcome,” Mr. Rosenthal said.

“Mr. Heng, who is based in Singapore, uses images and text — often in a provocative way — to make observations about international affairs,” Rosenthal added.

Heng is a veteran cartoonist whose work has appeared in a large number of publications over the past three decades. His cartoons focus on a wide range of international news events, and on leaders from Barack Obama to Xi Jinping.

The cartoon came on the day Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in New York addressing thousands of Indian-Americans from the podium of the Madison Square Garden.

Several people had hit back at the newspaper and commented on social media that the paper should publish the apology in its print edition instead of apologising on a Facebook page.

The Mangalyaan robotic probe was launched from the Sriharikota spaceport on the coast of the Bay of Bengal on 5 November 2013.

The satellite joins four other missions that are circling the planet: Maven (US), Mars Odyssey (US), Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (US) and Mars Express (Europe).

Indian news, New York Times, NYT, politics

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Tushita

Tushita is a political writer at thenational.net. Her deep rooted interest in politics, passion for writing and craze for travelling define her. Writing since her school days, she aspires to write lifelong and make the world a happier place to live with the power of her pen.