The Hindu errs!

The following letter I sent to The Readers' Editor of The Hindu on 10th Mar. 2010:
The Hindu carried the article ‘UPA fails to pull through Women's Bill in Upper House’ by Gargi Parsai on Tuesday, Mar 09, 2010, which claimed that SP and RJD had withdrawn support to the UPA government. This is what it said:
“On a day of fast moving developments, the Samajwadi Party and the Rashtriya Janata Dal withdrew support to the government, and its leaders met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the Leader of the House, Pranab Mukherjee, while the Bill itself was deferred to Tuesday.”

The fact, as reported by other newspapers and news channels, was that on the 8th the two Yadavs had only decided to withdraw support, which is not the same as withdrawing support. To use The Hindu’s own terminology, they had only “threatened” to withdraw support.

But, instead of correcting the error next day, The Hindu carried the headline: “Lalu withdraws support”. The text of the news, however, was correct: “Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad on Tuesday announced his decision to formally withdraw support to the government….
Samajwadi Party leader Mulayam Singh, who too had threatened to do so, however, was evasive on the issue. When journalists persisted with their questions, he said he would inform the media when he took a decision in this regard. Mr. Prasad said he would call on President Pratibha Patil and submit his letter to her on Wednesday”.

How on earth did this mixup occur?