New York Times calls India's Lata a so-called singer

Indian comedian Tanmay Bhat might have just found company of US newspaper The New York Times in an already-raging controversy he ignited, writes The Times of India.

Popular comedian Tanmay Bhat gave way to a huge controversy by mocking Bharat Ratna awardees Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar in a video which didn't go down well with the fans of these iconic achievers, according to a report of the Indian daily.

Bhat did a face swap with Sachin and Lata and the dialogue used in the video was derogatory to say the least. This irked the fans of both Lata and Sachin from all quarters and B-town and political parties' strong reactions were testimony to that.

In a report it carried on the row over Bhat's Snapchat video , nyt goofed - The New York Times described Lata Mangeshkar as a 'so-called playback singer'.

This, ToI said,  is the latest in a string of portrayals of India or Indians by NYT that has found itself rubbing people the wrong way on the other side of the globe.

The NYT article reportedly focused less on the controversy itself and more on requests from the Mumbai Police to delete the video from Facebook and YouTube.

In describing Bhat's controversial video, NYT said, "In the expletive-laced video, which was created on Snapchat, Mr Bhat uses that app's face-swap feature to impersonate Sachin Tendulkar , a hugely popular cricketer who retired in 2013, and Lata Mangeshkar, a so-called playback singer for Bollywood films whose career dates to the 1940s. Playback singers record vocals for song-and-dance numbers, to which actors and actresses lip sync."

ToI said NYT has faced flak before for its portrayal of India. It had unleashed a row in 2014 with a cartoon that accompanied an article titled 'India's Budget Mission to Mars'. The cartoon is said to have showed a turbaned Indian with a cow knocking on the doors of a room labled 'Elite Space Club'.

Not long after it faced online wrath over the cartoon, NYT reportedly backed down, saying, "We apologize to readers who were offended by the choice of images in this cartoon," and added that the cartoonist "was in no way trying to impugn India, its government or its citizens".

According to IANS report, the report by The New York Times which mentions Indian icon Lata Mangeshkar as a "so-called playback singer", has garnered the ire of Twitter users, who perhaps misconstrued the meaning of "so-called".

IANS report added, in reaction to the trolling, Ellen Barry, South Asia bureau chief for The New York Times, explained in a tweet: "A note on 'so-called': Used here for non-Indian readers unfamiliar with the term 'playback singer'. In no way a commentary."