XI equals to 11 not twelve

Class XI. Class XII. That's high school before one lands in college. Most make it to college and have a blast or a nightmare as the case maybe, but XI until recently was just 11. Until, the Chinese President came visiting.

A Doordarshan anchor's just lost her job after she called Xi Jinping "Eleven Jinping". It should be noted that the newsreader didn't call him Twelve Jinping, therefore, as Sherlock Holmes would say, she just read the facts, what flashed on the prompter or whatever it is DD has. "Elementary, my dear Watson," as wannabe Holmes aficionados will say, something the dude-sleuth in all of Arthur Conan Doyle's work never said.

This is Ocean's Eleven not Xi Jinping.

There have been Kings George I to VI of England and many more Edwards. So she possibly got it mixed up. But hey, people make mistakes. Xi is not exactly Sanskrit or Bengali or Tamil or Telugu (there are 15 official languages as per the eight Schedule of the Constitution). Someone should have cut her slack for getting it wrong and maybe devise a refresher course on contemporary world leaders, something every news organisation should do. But no, eager beavers that we Indians are to please powers-that-be and powers who we wish to woo, DD just snapped her contract leaving her high and mighty dry.

As someone who grew up in the south, I have heard P. Chidambaram's name being massacred whenever he was in the news. Barring a handful, most anchors called the poor rich lawyer-Congress leader Chidaaambaram. He took it in his stride and didn't sue for damages. Neither has Xi Jinping. Or for that matter Hu Jintao when Hu jokes cropped up all over the web.

Since the honourable Chinese president has not bothered to punish the news reader, maybe the information and broadcasting minister Prakash Javadekar could sort this out. But she better have met her attendance requisites, the minister is wont to check in and out timings, last heard.