Amitabh Bachchan introduces new ‘KBC’ season with quip on ‘GPS enabled currency notes’

By PTI

MUMBAI: Megastar Amitabh Bachchan has announced the return of his popular game show “Kaun Banega Crorepati” (KBC) with a new video where the screen icon addresses the perils of misinformation using the viral and fake claims of the “GPS-enabled Rs 2,000 currency notes”.

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation in 2016, several news channels had claimed how the new Rs 2,000 currency note would have an in-built GPS which would track its location round-the-clock.

The 50-second promo, shared by Sony TV on Saturday, took a dig at these false claims as it featured Bachchan reprising his role as the show’s host, posing a question to a contestant named Guddi.

In the video, the veteran actor is seen asking the contestant ‘Out of the typewriter, television, satellite and Rs 2,000 note, what has GPS technology in them?’ The contestant confidently chooses Rs 2,000 currency note as her answer, only to be told by Bachchan that the correct answer was satellite.

When the bewildered contestant asks if Bachchan was joking, the 79-year-old says, “What you believed as the truth was the joke”.

When the contestant says she got the information from the news portals, so it was their fault, Bachchan tells her that even if it was the mistake of journalists, “the loss was hers”.

“Gyaan jahaan se mile bator lijiye, par pehle zara tatol lijiye (Gather information from wherever you can, but verify it first),” he says in the promotional video.

The clip soon went viral on social media, with more than 10,000 likes on Twitter itself.

“We all know that one person jo humein aisi unverified sansani khabrein sunata hai! Tag them in the comments and tell them that Gyaan jahaan se mile bator lo, lekin pehle tatol lo,” Sony TV’s official Twitter page wrote, announcing season 14 of the show.

Bachchan has hosted “KBC” since its inception in 2000, except for the third season in 2007, which was hosted by superstar Shah Rukh Khan.