Before the government could announce its decision to pass an Ordinance on auctioning coal blocks news went viral that coal had been denationalised. How did this misinformation spread? On Monday morning, the finance minister told some journalists, off the record, that it was for the Cabinet to consider the issue of coal reform. This casual discussion among journalists was then blown out of proportion as TV channels and websites of prominent news outlets started flashing stories about the Cabinet approving the denationalisation of coal. The story spread so far and fast that even consultancy PriceWaterhouseCoopers, which has interests in the energy sector, picked up on it and released a statement saying "Coal mining denationalisation is an important step, should have been done sooner". This, in turn, created its own momentum on social networking websites with reporters re-tweeting and quoting stories on the de-nationalisation that, according to Finance Minister Arun Jaitley "is not happening and wasn't supposed to be".
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