newslaundry

30/11/2022

While the opened up job opportunities to ‘outsiders’, what do local villagers and Adivasis have to say about Modi's pet project and centrepiece of the BJP's campaign in the ?

Watch to find out. Link in bio.

29/11/2022

In 2017, then Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani declared the state open-defecation free. Two years later, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made the same claim about the whole country.

However, barely a kilometre away from the BJP office in Junagadh’s Manavadar city, around 200 families are still forced to defecate in the open in Murlinagar Vadivas, Newslaundry has found. These families consist of labourers from the Vadi community, a Scheduled Caste, and mostly rely on odd jobs at the cotton mills nearby for a livelihood.

Manavadar is one of Junagadh’s five assembly constituencies and is currently held by BJP MLA and former state minister Jawahar Chavda. He had won the seat as a Congress candidate in 2017 before resigning as the MLA and winning the bypoll on a BJP ticket two years later. He was subsequently appointed as the tourism and fisheries minister in the Rupani government.

However, not much has changed for residents of Murlinagar Vadivas, who go to a jungle nearby to relieve themselves, and have concerns about “dignity”.

Read the full report by on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

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29/11/2022

The Narendra Modi government has asked the Supreme Court collegium to “reconsider” several names – including that of senior advocate Saurabh Kirpal – recommended for appointment as high court judges. Kirpal, who is gay, recently told NDTV his elevation has been “stalled” because of his sexual orientation.

India Ahead reported that “one of the apparent reasons for rejecting Kirpal’s name seems to be the 50-year-old lawyer’s partner, who is a foreigner” – the Intelligence Bureau said “his European partner can become a security risk”.

Kirpal’s father is a former Chief Justice of India. His name was first recommended for elevation in October 2017. According to the Hindu, the collegium had considered his name but deferred its decision on four occasions from 2018 to 2021.

Read more on newslaundry.com

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29/11/2022

The editors and publishers of five media organisations issued an open letter yesterday urging the US government to end its prosecution of Julian Assange.

The letter – signed by the Guardian, New York Times, Le Monde, Der Spiegel and El País – was issued on the 12-year anniversary of “Cablegate”, when Assange’s WikiLeaks released 2,51,000 confidential cables from the US state department. The five media outlets had published these documents and the revelations they contained.

As the letter noted, the five signatories had criticised Assange in 2011 for publishing unredacted copies of some cables, and over allegations that he “attempted to aid in computer intrusion of a classified database”. But they were now compelled to “express our grave concerns about the continued prosecution of Julian Assange for obtaining and publishing classified materials”.

“This indictment sets a dangerous precedent, and threatens to undermine America’s First Amendment and the freedom of the press,” it said. “Holding governments accountable is part of the core mission of a free press in a democracy.”

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29/11/2022

The International Film Festival of India ended in Goa last night on a tense note after its jury chief described The Kashmir Files as “propaganda”.

Jury chief and Israeli filmmaker Nadav Lapid, during the closing ceremony, said the entire jury was “disturbed and shocked” by The Kashmir Files, which “felt to us like propaganda, vulgar movie, inappropriate for an artistic competitive section in such a prestigious film festival”.

His remarks went viral on social media.

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26/11/2022

Several editors and anchors have called it quits with the Noida-based Bharat24, which is controlled by bureaucrat-turned-media entrepreneur Jagdish Chandra, known by his near and dear ones as ‘Kaatil’.

Bharat24, which markets itself as the “vision of new India”, was launched with much pomp and pageantry on Independence Day in the presence of Anurag Thakur, the minister of information and broadcasting.

At least eight staffers have quit the channel since its launch. This includes managing editor Ajay Kumar, Uttar Pradesh editor Manoj Rajan Tripathi, Bihar editor Kumar Prabodh and input editor Sachin Sharma. Four anchors, Sonal Dahiya, Sachin Arora, Naina Yadav and Kavita Singh, have also bid adieu.

To find out the primary reasons behind these exits, read the full piece by on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

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25/11/2022

Here's this week's by ! ⬆️

Political commentary through cartoons is a fading tradition we seek to revive.

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25/11/2022

Here's this week's by ! ⬆️

Political commentary through cartoons is a fading tradition that, now more than ever, should be rewarded- not censored.

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24/11/2022

“Exam cancellation allows more time for students who are unprepared,” Karthik Chaudhary justifies the frequent cancellations of competitive exams held by the Gujarat government. But his justification is ridiculed the very next ment by his friends sipping tea with him at a tea stall behind a clutch of coaching institutes at Sector 6 in Gandhinagar, the capital of Gujarat. Karthik, a government job aspirant, is affiliated with the BJP.

As Gujarat votes in for 182 assembly seats on December 1 and 5, a string of exam paper cancellations — opposition parties put the number between 15 and 22 — has emerged as a major talking point among the state's unemployed youth. In the last five years, examinations for the posts of non-secretariat clerk, head clerk, constable, talathi, or village revenue officer, and forest guard have been cancelled because of leaks or administrative discrepancies – all Group 3 jobs, the lowest but one rung of government jobs. Of the total 4.9 crore voters in Gujarat, 1.03 crore are in the 20-29 age group.
Sector 6 hosts a large number of coaching institutes. They cater to thousands of students from mainly farming families who are looking to land government jobs. The students don't take kindly to frequent exam paper leaks.

Distressed, some of them talk of “change” in the government while others feel helpless as “everybody knows who is going to win the election”.

“Change is required. It is the only constant,” says Vipul Choudhary from Patan district who is preparing for Group 3 job exams. But this constant has eluded Gujarat as the BJP has ruled the state for the last 27 years, barring one year.

Read the full report by on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

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24/11/2022

As the Times Now Summit kicked off in the national capital, Times Group vice chairman Samir Jain presented a flattering account of union home minister Amit Shah, who was seated on stage next to Vineet Jain, the group’s managing director and the former’s brother.

“Andhera chhatega, sooraj niklega, kamal khilega,” said Jain, reminding the audience of “great poet” and former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s words, linking the words to Shah’s political career. Vajpayee had made the remarks at the BJP’s first convention in Mumbai in 1980.

When Vajpayee said these words, Jain said, “honourable Amit Shah ji was beginning his contribution to political life. And our energetic Amit bhai ji, full of energy, has bloomed many lotuses. In 2,800 subdivisions, the lotus has bloomed.”

“Today that you are here, there is a note of thanks from the bottom of the heart. You all are welcome to the Times Now Summit,” Jain said, translating the word summit to shikhar. “Meeting you, there was an awareness of your perseverance. And a realisation, that not in a day, but success is achieved one day. That day is today, that time is now. Times Now.”

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24/11/2022

Allegations of the BJP boycotting the media for inviting an Aam Aadmi Party spokesperson have surfaced again. This time on India Today TV, on its election show titled State Of War.

The show, anchored by the channel’s consulting editor Rajdeep Sardesai and deputy editor Preeti Chaudhary, discussed several issues linked to the Gujarat election, ranging from Morbi tragedy, Hindutva, alienation of minorities, Patidar votes, the Bharat Jodo Yatra and the AAP’s relevance.

For its panel discussion, the show had invited BJP spokesperson Satyen Kulabkar, Congress spokesperson Anshul Avijit and senior journalist Ajay Umat.

Read more on newslaundry.com

24/11/2022

Jailed Aam Aadmi Party minister Satyendar Jain moved a Delhi court yesterday asking that the media be restrained from airing video footage of him shot inside Tihar Jail. The Enforcement Directorate arrested Jain in May this year in connection with a money laundering case.

According to Bar and Bench, his counsel told the court, “We are not running away. Today one release, tomorrow another release. Does your conscience not prick?...Is this a media trial? All my rights are thrown to the wind.”

At least two videos did the rounds on social media, purportedly CCTV footage of Jain’s jail cell. The first indicated Jain was allegedly eating “proper food” in jail and the second that he was getting a “massage” from another prisoner.

According to the Hindu, the videos are dated September 13 and October 1.

Read more on newslaundry.com

23/11/2022

“Mera Abdul aisa nahin hai.”

This slogan – recently amplified along with messages by Hindu nationalist accounts in the wake of the Shraddha Walkar murder case – suggested that all Abduls, or Muslims, might be potential killers, and those who did not share this essentialist belief were naive Hindu girls. Sections of the mainstream media too, in as many words, have vilified a community over the incident, in its reliance on the trope of “love jihad”: the conspiracy theory that Muslim men are ensnaring Hindu women as part of an organised network to convert Hindus to Islam and make India an Islamic state.

But Abdul the Evil isn’t just behind “love jihad”. On Monday, a Sudarshan News show accused Abduls of waging “vyaapaar jihad”, or “business jihad”. The anchor of the show – headlined “love jihad mein 35 tukde, vyaapaar jihad mein 80 tukde” – asked if one has to pay “with one’s life for a friendship with or love for Abdul”. “Do you feel that befriending a Muslim means giving your life?” asked anchor Mukesh Kumar on his show Jawaab To Chahye.

The anchor cited a murder case in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh, where one Yunus Ansari allegedly killed his business partner Vikas Giri over a rumoured love affair with the former’s sister, and dumped the body in a forest after allegedly chopping it into 80 pieces. The incident came to light after Giri’s father lodged a missing complaint four months ago, with the police subsequently claiming to have arrested Ansari and discovered bones in the forest. Police earlier told Times Now that Ansari has confessed to the crime and alleged that he killed Giri for allegedly molesting one of his sisters in her house.

But why did the anchor feel the need to rely on the name Abdul, even though he had clarified on the show who these Abduls were. “Do you feel that befriending a Muslim means giving your life?”

To find out, read the full piece by .aban on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

23/11/2022

iTV Network, which owns news channels like NewsX and India News, has “pulled out” from the Broadcast Audience Research Council’s TV audience measurement system with “immediate effect”, Exchange4Media reported yesterday.

In a statement, the network said it had “raised very serious concerns regarding the reliability/trustworthiness of the ratings, but none of our concerns has been addressed till date”.

“Time and again, we’ve raised our concern and reservations over the arbitrary and unilateral mechanism being used by BARC,” the statement said. “...There is a total loss of faith and credibility in the working of BARC, and we along with many broadcasters are forced to remain connected with BARC because it is the only TV ratings agency and enjoys a dominant position. The unexplained actions of BARC have greatly damaged our networks.”

Earlier this year, Zee Media and NDTV had also opted out of BARC ratings.

Read more on newslaundry.com

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22/11/2022

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday refused to restrain former WION editor Palki Sharma Upadhyay from joining Network18. The anchor was taken to court by her previous employer, Zee Media Corporation Limited.

Zee Media went to court against the anchor in October, nearly a month after she left the network for greener pastures as a managing editor at Network18.

According to Bar and Bench, the court also recorded an undertaking by Upadhyay’s counsel that “she will not divulge any sensitive or confidential information that she may have been privy to during her engagement with the Zee to any third party”.

To learn more, read the full piece by on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

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22/11/2022

Issuing changes to its tariff order and interconnection regulations, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has announced a cap of Rs 19 for a channel to be part of a bouquet, and channels exceeding this price must be offered separately with no limit on their MRP. This cap was earlier fixed at Rs 12.

In addition, a broadcaster cannot offer a television channel distributor a discount greater than 45 percent on a bouquet, and any discount must be based on the combined subscription numbers of that channel in à la carte and bouquet modes.

TRAI notified the amendments through a telecommunication order and the Telecommunication Regulations, 2022.

Read more on newslaundry.com

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22/11/2022

Every day, Suman, 32, wakes up early, fills up a lota or a plastic water bottle and walks out to the forest adjoining the Kirby Place slum in central Delhi to relieve herself. As do hundreds of men, women and children from the slum. Kirby Place is supposed to be “open defecation free”, like, according to a declaration by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Gandhi Jayanti in 2019, all the rest of India.

Kirby Place is barely 10 km from the prime minister’s residence in New Delhi.

The slum is under the jurisdiction of the Delhi Cantonment Board, a municipal body administratively controlled by the defence ministry’s Directorate General Defence Estates. Delhi Cantt is not merely open defecation free, the website of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan declares, all its community and public toilets are “functional and well maintained” and its sewage is “safely managed and treated”.

Although the Delhi Cantonment Board has stationed mobile toilets in Kirby Place, most aren’t functional or usable, compelling hundreds of nearly 3,000 residents to use the outdoors.

“Only a few of the toilets are operational. So the people have no option but to go to the jungle,” said Bhanu Prasad, 40, a resident who works as a security guard in South Delhi.

sheds light on the bleak reality on ground. Read the full on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

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22/11/2022

It was one interaction during the G20 summit in Bali last week, but it spawned two very different recollections of what happened.

During the summit, many of the world leaders in attendance had meet-and-greets with each other. This included Indian prime minister Narendra Modi and US president Joe Biden.
India’s ministry of external affairs issued a press release on November 15 on the Biden-Modi interaction. It said Modi and Biden “reviewed the continued deepening of the India-US strategic partnership” in sectors like “critical and emerging technologies, advanced computing, artificial intelligence”.

The two leaders then “expressed satisfaction about the close cooperation between India and US”, they “discussed topical global and regional developments”.

Modi finally “thanked” Biden for his “constant support” and “expressed confidence” that India and the US would “continue to maintain close coordination”.

The US’s version was much, much shorter. It didn’t issue a press release but the interaction found brief mention in a transcript on November 21, after press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre chatted with journalists on Air Force One.

Read more on newslaundry.com

22/11/2022

Swaraj is a docu-drama series on Doordarshan. Celebrating 75 years of Indian independence, this “75-episode mega show” showcases “several aspects of Indian history featuring the lives and sacrifices of lesser-known heroes of the freedom struggle”. It airs in 10 languages and is also broadcast on All India Radio.

It was launched by Amit Shah, widely promoted by Narendra Modi, and produced with an estimated budget of over Rs 50 crore.

So far, Prasar Bharati has spent over Rs 9 crore in promoting the show, hoping to capture the success of Doordarshan’s 1988 show Bharat Ek Khoj. Its research committee is staffed by members of the BJP and the RSS. Insiders told Newslaundry this might be Doordarshan’s “costliest” programme ever.

But is anyone watching?

To find out, read the full report by on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

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22/11/2022

Five news channels have been pulled up by the Delhi High Court for “misreporting” on the investigation into Delhi’s now-revoked excise policy.

According to Bar and Bench, the court yesterday issued notice to Republic TV, India Today, Zee News and Times Now, among others, and directed the News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority to “examine” their reports and “inform the court whether the broadcasts were compliant with their guidelines or not”.

The court passed the order while hearing a plea filed by Vijay Nair, who was arrested by the CBI in connection with the investigation in September.

Read more on newslaundry.com

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19/11/2022

Opinion | Anand Vardhan writes:

As the G-20 summit wrapped up earlier this week in Indonesia, the stage is now set for India to take over the group’s presidency from December 1. The next few months will see India explore various fusions of its leadership of an influential multilateral group and its core interests on the high table of global diplomacy. This, however, might need deft handling to leverage gains for itself in a role which entails India presiding over a wide range of 200 meetings of the group before it culminates in the 18th summit of the G-20 heads of the government and state in September next year in New Delhi.

Amid other factors, India would need diplomatic clarity on what it can do in tandem with the presidential agenda and what interests it needs to pursue – detached from the same or despite its one-year centrality in G-20 structure.

The joint declaration of the Bali summit mirrored the run-up to the meet – G-20 coming to terms with a world yet to fully recover from the jolt of the pandemic and in the grip of the long Ukraine war, economic slowdown, and the food and energy supply crisis. Even if India did manage to leave an imprint on the drafting of the final text of the declaration, a role that even the White House spokesperson acknowledged, Indian diplomacy needs to keep the elbow room for itself in any collective line that the group might take.

Expectedly, energy and food security engaged the summit meet, especially seen in context of the Ukraine war. But, the text also reflects that concerns about international law and order, and the sufferings of the Ukraine war and further threats don’t mean that every member condemned Russian action – some members decided against blaming Russia alone.

Read the full piece on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

19/11/2022

Days after lodging an FIR over a suspected militant threat to nearly 20 journalists in Kashmir, police searched the houses of several journalists on Saturday. Kashmiriyat editor Qazi Shibli, whose residence was among the properties searched, had also found a mention in the list that accused several journalists of propagating the government’s narrative.

“Massive searches in connection with of case related to recent to journalists started by Police at 10 locations in , and . Details shall be followed,” Kashmir police tweeted. The houses of journalists Wasim Raja, Hakim Rashid Maqbool and Turkey-based Mukhtar Baba, and former journalists Khalid Gul, Sajad Krylari and Gowhar Gilani, were among those searched.

This comes days after five Kashmiri journalists associated with the daily Rising Kashmir resigned in wake of the threats. Police earlier said it suspected The Resistance Front, an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, to be behind the threats which were published on the blacklisted blog called the “Kashmir fight”. An FIR was subsequently filed under the UAPA in Srinagar.

Read the full report by Prateek Goyal on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

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18/11/2022

Analysis | writes:

After walking and talking with him for a few minutes, a young girl plants a kiss on Rahul Gandhi’s hand. She then disappears into the crowd, many of whom push to pull off what she just had: score a meeting with the Congress leader.

Everyone wants a piece of Rahul Gandhi. Congress leaders, workers and supporters, journalists, his own PR people, and common villagers, many with cellphone cameras drawn, jostle to catch a sight of the leader and score a selfie as he walks 3,500 km from Kanyakumari to Kashmir for the Bharat Jodo Yatra.
It is hard to keep up with Gandhi on the road. And not just because of his zealous security. He walks at pace and doesn’t stop for a break or even slow down, save for brief pauses to meet people.

Gandhi walks 24 km daily, from 6 am to 10 am and then from 4 pm to 7 pm. His routes are lined with people bearing gifts – sugarcane, small plants, photo frames. If Gandhi spots them, he gives them more than a wave. He walks up to them and gets them inside his circle, and walks along with them.
This, of course, makes for great photo ops. The pictures that Gandhi’s PR team has cleverly marketed show him holding the person by their shoulder or their hand – a personal touch.

Read the full piece on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

18/11/2022

Analysis | Soham De and Joyojeet Pal write:

Claims and counter-claims around partisanship in the news fraternity have been as old as mainstream media has existed in India. With the growth of social media, these allegations appear in the public eye with more frequency, especially as politicians and journalists themselves contribute to the perception of a highly-polarised media landscape on Twitter.

While explicit partisanship is hard to establish, the engagement of politicians with journalists on Twitter may shed insights on the media landscape online. Despite what many users claim, studies have found retweets to be a fair measure of personal endorsement on Twitter. In our recent study at the University of Michigan, we tracked politicians’ retweets of Indian journalists and media houses to understand what endorsement or amplification from politicians says about the media fraternity on Twitter. We did this by collecting retweets from a database of 40,000 Indian politicians and political workers over a period of one year, from August 2021 to September 2022, and analysed the extent to which they retweeted tweets from the handles of media organisations and journalists.

The polarisation inferred through this method shows evidence that parties not only have preferred news sources, but that politicians also have clear preferences for the work of individual journalists – consistent on party lines.

Tweets from three media organisations – Zee, Republic and Jagran groups – are disproportionately endorsed by politicians from the BJP disposition while NDTV’s Hindi and English offerings tend to be engaged mainly by opposition.

While the study over-sampled from north Indian journalists on account of the Delhi-centric nature of national politics, we found two main groups of journalists on Twitter – one of which was primarily endorsed by politicians of the governing BJP while the other received endorsements from opposition parties such the Indian National Congress, SP, AAP and DMK.

Read the full piece on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

17/11/2022

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➡️ An interactive live session with the NL team leads exclusively for Game Changer subscribers for supporting us in keeping independent media alive

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➡️ Saturday, November 19 at 7 PM

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17/11/2022

The Press Council of India has criticised Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot for “discriminating” against Hindi daily Rashtradoot by stopping its government advertisements for allegedly not publicising the government’s schemes, the Times of India reported.

The PCI had taken suo motu cognisance of Gehlot’s remarks in December 2019 when he reportedly said that advertisements will be issued to newspapers which publicise government schemes. After an inquiry, the council adopted a report, which had suggested that the PCI must express its extreme displeasure.

Read more on newslaundry.com

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16/11/2022

Information and Broadcasting minister Anurag Thakur today indicated his displeasure at the news website Wire's now retracted stories on Meta and Bharatiya Janata Party's IT chief Amit Malviya.

"It is extremely regrettable that a prominent digital media platform was recently found to be indulging in malicious disinformation to target our government," Thakur said.

Read more on newslaundry.com

16/11/2022

16/11/2022

“They have told me that I cannot go to the jungle any more. I don’t know how I will work on my farm, which is around a kilometre from the village and inside a forest. How will I earn my livelihood? I have to take care of my children. I have been living in constant fear. I am not a Maoist and have not done anything wrong.”

These are the words of Lakshman Madavi, 33, who was among the 121 men acquitted in July after five years of wrongful imprisonment in the Burkapal Maoist attack case in Bastar. After the court verdict, Lakshman had hoped to start life afresh, with his wife Vijaya and two children aged 13 and nine, who were struggling to make ends meet without him. But just 10 days later, Vijaya died of brain haemorrhage, and three months later, Lakshman was allegedly picked up by the CRPF’s CoBRA battalion and accused of Maoist links – again.

On October 23, Lakshman was taken to the Burkapal police camp and interrogated by CoBRA personnel. “It was noon and some of my friends had come home to meet me. The police barged into my house and took me with them. They interrogated me and alleged that I was connected to Maoists and had gone to the jungle to meet them. They also alleged that I was involved in a recent IED blast. They began hitting me. I informed them that I have been acquitted by court recently and have lost my wife.”

Denying all the accusations made against him, Lakshman claimed that he was released at around 5 pm after an intervention by local residents and that he had only left the village once to attend a funeral of a relative. He said he had not even visited his farm but it was time to harvest his crop now.

Read the full report on newslaundry.com, link in bio.

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16/11/2022

Five Kashmiri journalists associated with the daily Rising Kashmir have resigned after a suspected militant organisation purportedly put out a list of over a dozen mediapersons accusing them of being police informers, NDTV reported.

The Jammu and Kashmir police said it suspected The Resistance Front, an offshoot of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, to be behind the threats which were published on a blog called “Kashmir Fight”. An FIR has been filed under UAPA.

According to NDTV, three reporters published resignations on their social media pages to avoid being targeted. A young reporter on the civic beat said he stepped down after being accused of propagating the army narrative. “I have been reporting about civic issues, water, drains, and transport. I have never reported anything on army or covered any army function so far. Yet they have branded me as an army informer," the reporter told NDTV.

Read more on newslaundry.com

15/11/2022

Days after Ajit Mohan, the vice president and managing director of Meta India, announced his departure from the company, Meta India has confirmed the resignations of two other senior executives. Abhijit “Bobby” Bose, the head of WhatsApp India, and Rajiv Aggarwal, the public policy director of Meta India, have resigned from the company.

Read more on newslaundry.com