This is incredibly silly. It's one of the biggest jokes of the year. It's surreal, almost. You won't believe what happened today.

On Sunday evening, scientist Anand Ranganathan joked on Twitter that he recently met Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who promised him that Tamil Nadu will get GI tag for originating Mysore Pak. The sweet item, in fact, has its roots in Karnataka. Since Anand loves Mysore Pak a lot, he was satirically saying on Twitter that he feels sad that such a nice item is not from Tamil Nadu. And he joked that he is happy that the FM has promised that TN will get the credit for 'inventing' Mysore Pak.

Some of the Kannada-language news channels didn't understand that Anand was joking. They thought that the Union Minister is indeed out to give GI tag to TN and cheat Karnataka in the process. TV9 and a few other channels reported with a tinge of outrage about the joke as serious news.

A channel went to the extent of calling out Sitharaman as a two-faced person who has ditched the Kannada State to favour the Tamil State. A political leader has actually threatened a hartal!

Everyone is shocked that the Finance Minister's name has been dragged into a joke that the reporters of the news channels failed to comprehend. Phew!

Pleased to receive this token of appreciation, on behalf of the one-man-committee for granting of the Mysorepak GI tag to Tamilnadu.

Talks are proceeding smoothly. WDTT. pic.twitter.com/khppaVijXt

— Anand Ranganathan (@ARanganathan72) September 15, 2019