Doordarshan sacks newsreader for reading Chinese President Xi Jinping's name wrong

Doordarshan has sacked a newsreader for slipping up and pronouncing the name of Chinese President Xi Jinping wrong, while reporting about his arrival in Delhi for talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The newsreader reportedly confused the Chinese head of state's name - Xi - for the Roman numeral XI, and read his name out "Eleven Jinping", according to Quartz.

Jawahar Sircar, the CEO of Prasar Bharti, confirmed to Quartz that they have sacked the newsreader. “It’s true, we have sacked the concerned newsreader. We are putting systems in place to make sure such things don’t happen in future,” he said.

The blooper occurred on a show on Doordarshan news on Wednesday. "It is an unpardonable mistake," a senior official told Reuters on the condition of anonymity, saying the anchor was employed on a casual basis. "We have debarred her from news reading for a few months."

China will invest almost $21 billion in India over the next five years and the two countries will work together on railways, universities, Chinese industrial parks and civil nuclear cooperation. Unfortunately, this summit is more memorable for the broadcaster being sacked for a mispronunciation of a very important name.

The incident comes at a time when Doordarshan news is trying to reinvent itself to compete with private broadcasters. Its programmes are often a matter of public ridicule for their poor production quality. The gaffe led to a wave of sarcastic comments on social media. 

"The silver lining: at least the anchor knows Roman numerals," a user posted on Twitter.

With inputs from agencies.