Start-up India tweets spark embarrassment

A huge controversy erupted on social media, when the official Twitter handle of Startup India retweeted tweets inciting violence against journalists for allegedly taking a pro-Pakistan stand.

Following the uproar, the commerce and industry ministry said on Wednesday that action has been taken against the individual responsible for re-tweeting “unwarranted and irrelevant retweets” on the Startup India handle. “Unwarranted and irrelevant retweets have been deleted. We do not endorse anything outside the startup eco-system. Apologies to our followers,” Startup India tweeted.

In the evening, commerce and industry ministry tweeted that the person responsible for those controversial retweets had put in his papers.

“This is with reference to two unwarranted & irrelevant re-tweets done in the midnight by @startupindia handle. Moment it was noticed that @startupindia had done two unauthorised retweets. Right then at midnight the retweets were undone,” the ministry said in series of tweets. It said that the unauthorised retweets were done by one employee of the agency hired by the DIPP through a tendering process. The person assigned by the agency for this particular job is not decided by the department and is the sole prerogative of the agency, it said, adding the usual practice of getting the tweets/ retweets approved from the department was not followed in this case.

“It was completely wrong and unacceptable for the employee to have retweeted on a matter completely unrelated to Startup India,” it said. “The concerned employee has already put in his papers & will have nothing to do with @startupindia from here on,” it added.

“We hope that inadvertent misdeeds of 1 person outside our dept will not undermine the true spirit of Team Startup India,” it said.