Assertion Partly supported AI assessment confidence: 88% certainty 4/5 debate potential 1/5

Singh: Video campaign and petition secured a job for Santhi Soundarajan

Vishakha Singh · EP8: How to build a Multi-Faceted Career: Actor, Producer & Entrepreneur ft Vishakha Singh · May 15, 2025 · at 1:03:27

Actor and producer Vishakha Singh discusses her grassroots advocacy for Indian track athlete Santhi Soundarajan following Soundarajan's gender verification controversy and subsequent marginalization.

0:00 / 0:18exact quote · 18.6s

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“So we made a video and we released it and that went viral. And the impact that it had was we had these, you know, those Change.org, you know, the signatures, the petitions that we have. We had a lot of signatures that happened because of that video, and then we were able to secure a job for her.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

The claim, plainly

A viral video and Change.org petition campaign organized by Vishakha Singh helped secure an employment position for Indian athlete Santhi Soundarajan.

a quote alone can be ambiguous, so this restates it with the references and context of the conversation around it resolved. AI-written; the tape below the player is the source.

Assessment

The core substantive assertions are confirmed: in August 2016, then-entrepreneur and actress Vishakha Singh co-organized a social campaign featuring a viral video profiling athlete Santhi Soundarajan, and the accompanying petition and public awareness directly contributed to the Tamil Nadu state government appointing Soundarajan as a permanent athletics coach with the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT) in December 2016. However, the petition that drove this campaign was hosted on Singh's own platform, Thappad (thappad.in), collecting over 13,000 signatures, rather than on Change.org (where an earlier petition had stalled under 1,500 signatures). While Singh appeared to use 'Change.org' colloquially during the podcast to refer to online petitioning, the specific assertion that it was a Change.org campaign is factually inaccurate.

In August 2016, Vishakha Singh and the Thappad platform released the viral video 'Justice for Shanthi Soundarajan' alongside the petition '#FairTreatment for Shanthi Soundarajan', which gained over 13,000 signatures on thappad.in.
Contemporaneous reporting in October 2016 noted that the Thappad viral video and campaign directly prompted government review of Soundarajan's case.
On December 20, 2016, Soundarajan officially received an appointment order from the Tamil Nadu government as a coach at the Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDAT).
The viral petition was hosted on Thappad.in, whereas an earlier Change.org petition predating the viral video had stalled with under 1,500 signatures.

Checked against

[1] wikipedia.org [2] thehindu.com [3] thequint.com [4] wikipedia.org [5] deccanchronicle.com [6] ranker.com [7] fossbytes.com [8] indianexpress.com

"Thappad" app "Santhi Soundarajan" "Justice for Santhi" change.org "Santhi Soundarajan" "petition" "coach" Santhi Soundarajan Change org petition coach SDAT "Thappad" "Vishakha Singh" Vishakha Singh Santhi Soundarajan petition "Justice for Shanthi: Petition supporting TN athlete who failed the gender test" "Thappad" "Sandesh Suvarna" "Actress Vishakha Singh" "Deepa Ramanujam" "Thappad" "FairTreatment for Shanthi Soundarajan" "Shanthi Soundarajan" "change.org" "Vishakha Singh" "Santhi" "Thappad" "Shanthi Soundarajan" OR "Santhi Soundarajan"

assessed as of 2026-09-08

This assessment is an AI reading of a public statement, made against the cited references with the confidence shown. It can be wrong. The quote, the tape and the references are all on this page; if something is off, use report an error below. full disclaimer →

Mentioned

Change.org santhi soundarajan vishakha singh

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