South Asia Investor Review

The story of the padlocked grave has gone viral, thanks to the mainstream Indian news media ranging from the Times of India  to NDTV. The story links the image of a padlocked grave to rising necrophilia cases in Pakistan, with the claim that the image is an example of how parents lock their daughters’ graves in Pakistan in order to prevent rape.  Alt News , a fact-check site run by Mohammed Zubair and Pratik Sinha, has found that the grave is in fact located in the Indian city of Hyderabad.   Fake News in Indian Mainstream Media. Source: Alt News   Indian news agency ANI Digital tweeted the image of the green padlocked grave with the claim. In its article titled ‘Pakistani parents lock daughters’ graves to avoid rape’, it cited a Daily Times article to report that parents in Pakistan protected their dead daughters against rape by putting padlocks on their graves. None made any attempt to verify it.   Padlocked Grave Fake News Made Top Google Search Res...

In 2018, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-hand man and home minister Amit Shah told his party's volunteers commonly known as Modi Bhakts: "We can keep making messages go viral, whether they are real or fake, sweet or sour". "Keep making messages go viral. We have already made a WhatsApp group with 32 lakh people in Uttar Pradesh; every morning they are sent a message at 8 am", Shah added, according to a report in  Dainik Bhaskar , an Indian Hindi-language daily newspaper. Indian Fake News Peddlers Rahul Kanwal (L) and Arnab Goswami Amit Shah's advice has been heeded by not only  BJP trolls  but also many in the Indian mainstream media, including India Today and Republic TV.   After the 2019  aerial battle  between Indian Air Force and Pakistan Air Force over Kashmir, India government and media claimed shooting down a Pakistani F-16.  India Today TV anchor Rahul Kanwal invited  Abhijit Aiyar Mitra, an Indian aviation expert, to conf...

Researchers at Europe's Disinfo Lab have uncovered a network of 265 online news sites in 65 countries, including Pakistan, using the names and brands of defunct newspapers from the 20th century to push  anti-Pakistan  media coverage inside the regular news cycle. Two of these sites are located in Pakistani cities of Karachi and Lahore, according to Disinfo Lab's report. They are linked to  social media accounts .  These two sites were spewing disinformation on Pakistan using the names of the long defunct Socialist Weekly (Karachi) and Khalsa Akhbar (Lahore), according to  Pakistani researchers .  The real Karachi-based Urdu language Socialist Weekly and Lahore-based Punjabi language Khalsa Akhbar ceased publishing decades ago, long before the advent of online publishing. Two of 265 Anti-Pakistan Websites in Pakistan. Source: EU Disinfo Lab The fake news sites were aimed at reinforcing the legitimacy of anti-Pakistan  NGOs  by providing lin...