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Military Veterans Urge President to Take Action on Fake News About ‘Muslim Regiment’

Military Veterans Urge President to Take Action on Fake News About ‘Muslim Regiment’

Indian Army

The letter pointed out that the campaign of falsehood emanated from a tweet in 2013 posted by a Twitter account ‘World Hindus United’

NEW DELHI — A group of 120 Indian military veterans have written an open letter to President Ram Nath Kovind urging him to initiate immediate action against people spreading the fake news against armymen who are Muslim.

The fake news being peddled on social media says that Indian Army’s “Muslim Regiment” had refused to fight against Pakistan during the 1965 war, and, hence, it was disbanded.

The letter addressed to the President, who is the Supreme Commander of the armed forces, said: “These ‘Muslim Regiment’ posts are blatantly false, because the Indian Army did not have a Muslim Regiment in 1965 or since. Muslims fighting as part of multi-class regiments proved their absolute commitment to the cause of our nation.”

The letter pointed out that the campaign of falsehood emanated from a tweet in 2013 posted by a Twitter account ‘World Hindus United’. The tweet is again doing the rounds on social media amid a volatile situation on the India-China border in Ladakh.

“The tweet was meant to show that Muslim soldiers had their loyalties to Pakistan rather than India. The ‘Muslim Regiment’ post has been re-tweeted many times thereafter, and its insidious surfacing during the on-going Chinese aggression, is certainly suspect,” the letter says, and notes the valour of Muslims who were at the forefront of battles fought by India.

For  example, Brigadier Mohammad Usman who chose to remain in the Indian Army in spite of being approached personally by Jinnah to move to Pakistan. “He fought the Pakistani invasion in Kashmir, was the senior most officer killed in action in July 1948, and was posthumously awarded Mahavir Chakra for his gallantry. He lies buried in the Jamia Millia Islamia campus in Delhi…” the letter notes.

The signatories said that the tweet helped the enemy by striking at the morale of India’s soldiers to degrade their operational capability.

“It needs no emphasis that social unrest adversely affects the morale of soldiers who are far away from their families, doing their duty to defend our borders, at daily risk to life and limb,” said the veterans of the armed forces from all ranks of the Army, Navy and Air Force.

They have requested the President to take following immediate measures:

Investigate the antecedents of individuals who have made ‘Muslim Regiment’ posts.

dentify and charge individuals who have made ‘Muslim Regiment’ posts for anti-national activities.

Issue warning to the social media providers (Facebook and Twitter) who have enabled ‘Muslim Regiment’ posts.

Issue immediate instructions to all state governments that the generation of false and seditious messages in social media should be acted upon with alacrity so as to not jeopardise national security.

The list of signatories:

  1. Admiral Laxminarayan Ramdas, PVSM, AVSM, VrC, VSM
  2. Lt Gen Ramdas Mohan, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
  3. Lt Gen RK Nanavatty, PVSM, UYSM, AVSM
  4. Lt Gen Vijay Oberoi, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
  5. Lt Gen UK Ganguli
  6. Lt Gen Raman Dhawan, AVSM,VSM**, ADC
  7. Lt Gen Ashwini Kumar Bakshi AVSM, SM, VSM
  8. Lt Gen Oomman P Mathew, PVSM, AVSM, SM
  9. Lt Gen Kishen Bhatia, PVSM
  10. Lt Gen KS Rao, PVSM, SC, SM
  11. Vice Admiral Madanjit Singh, PVSM, AVSM
  12. Vice Admiral R P Suthan, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
  13. Vice Admiral Michael Morales, AVSM
  14. Maj Gen SG Vombatkere, VSM
  15. Maj Gen PK Joglekar, PVSM
  16. Maj Gen Arun Srinivasan
  17. Maj Gen Suresh Krishnan
  18. Maj Gen Inderjit Kashyap
  19. Maj Gen Anil Sawhny, AVSM
  20. Maj Gen SS Grewall, AVSM
  21. Maj Gen Rajendra Prakash, VSM
  22. Maj Gen TK Kaul, PVSM, AVSM, VSM
  23. Maj Gen MPS Kandal
  24. Maj Gen SS Chohan
  25. Rear Admiral Stanley Alan O’Leary
  26. Brig Baqir Shameem
  27. Brig Sharad Ramchandra Luktuke, SM, VSM
  28. Brig Mohammad Nasim Khan
  29. Brig Kakar
  30. Brig JM Devadoss, SM
  31. Brig Vijay Raheja
  32. Brig M Sudandiram, VSM
  33. Brig Vinod Kumar Adappa, SM
  34. Brig Prem Hejmadi
  35. Brig SP Agarwal
  36. Brig M R Deshpande
  37. Brig Deepak Grover
  38. Brig AM Sharma
  39. Brig Virendra Kumar Bajaj
  40. Brig Anil Bhat
  41. Brig SK Jandial
  42. Brig Ali Adil Mahmood, VSM
  43. Brig RJS Dhillon, YSM, VSM
  44. Brig AN Suryanarayanan
  45. Brig MJ Jacob, SM
  46. Col Dinesh Kumar
  47. Col Pavan Nair, VSM
  48. Col Shashi Thomas
  49. Col Ashwin Baindur
  50. Col Ajay Dabholkar
  51. Col RK Minocha
  52. Col Rajendra Bhaduri
  53. Col VK Rajendran
  54. Col Vinay Kumta
  55. Col A K Moghe
  56. Col Ronnie Burjor Mistry
  57. Col Vivek Bopiah
  58. Col Ajay Kumar Dewan
  59. Col Manduvanda Lava Cheeyanna
  60. Col Sunil Datt
  61. Col Manmohan Singh
  62. Col Esmond Jules Sanchis
  63. Col Sharath Bhat
  64. Col Raghu Akella, VSM
  65. Col Rajive Kohli
  66. Col Vivek Bhatt
  67. Col Swaran Singh Pathania
  68. Col CK Roy
  69. Col VR Menon
  70. Capt (IN) Subbarao Prabhala,VSM
  71. Capt (IN) AK Kalia
  72. Capt (IN) Paul Abraham
  73. Gp Capt BC Christopher
  74. Gp Capt Philips Jacob, VM
  75. Lt Col Vijay N Kharkar
  76. Lt Col Johnson Thomas
  77. Lt Col Shubeg Singh Gill
  78. Lt Col VC Alexander
  79. Lt Col Riyaz Khan
  80. Lt Col A K Suri
  81. Lt Col Niraj Pant
  82. Lt Col Aditya Parida
  83. Lt Col Arun Rao, SM
  84. Lt Col Hasan Muzaffar, SM
  85. Lt Col TL Sharma
  86. Lt Col Avinash Karnik
  87. Lt Col JE Premkumar
  88. Cdr A Vibhuti
  89. Cdr S Viswanathan
  90. Cdr A Abraham
  91. Cdr MV Cherukoth
  92. Cdr Ravindra P Varma
  93. Cdr MM Pareek
  94. Cdr CR Babu
  1. Cdr Arvind Poothia
  2. Cdr Karunesh Kaushik
  3. Cdr Dipak D Naik
  4. Cdr John Philipose
  5. Cdr Tom Joseph
  6. Wg Cdr A S Joshi (Retd)
  7. Wg Cdr Rakesh Sant
  8. Wg Cdr Vinod Nebb, VrC**
  9. Wg Cdr Mohammad Sufiyan Khan
  10. Wg Cdr Bertrand Joseph Vaz
  11. Maj Priyadarshi Chowdhury, SC
  12. Maj Jasbeer Singh, SM
  13. Maj Vijay Sharma
  14. Maj MG Devasahayam
  15. Maj AA Khan
  16. Lt Cdr Harbans Singh Dhillon
  17. Lt Cdr Rajender Singh Bajwa
  18. Capt JJ Alfred Rajasekaran
  19. Flt Lt Rajiv Tyagi
  20. Lt (IN) Sandhya Suri
  21. Hony Lt (IN) DN Singh, MSM
  22. Hony Lt (IN) Tilak Raj Sharma
  23. Sergeant Sunil Rao
  24. Sergeant Mandetira N Subramani
  25. Sergeant Joginder Singh
  26. Sergeant Irshad Shaikh
Fake news nets $1.2 mn compensation for NRI businessman

Fake news nets $1.2 mn compensation for NRI businessman

 Altaf Nazerali

Altaf Nazerali

By Gurmukh Singh,

Vancouver : An Indo-Canadian businessman, who is originally from Bhuj, Gujarat, has been awarded $1.2 million in damages after he was defamed in a series of fake news articles instigated by a prominent American blockchain investor.

It is one of the biggest compensations of its kind in Canada.

Vancouver-based Altaf Nazerali had sued Patrick Byrne, CEO of online retailer Overstock.com, for a campaign of lies aimed to tarnish the reputation of the NRI businessman.

Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected Byrne’s appeal against $1.2 million granted to the NRI businessman by the Supreme Court of British Columbia in 2016.

The huge compensation for Nazerali comes after a seven-year legal battle to clear his name after a series of articles published in 2011, on an American website DeepCapture.com tried to depict the NRI businessman as a drug trafficker, arms dealer and gangster and a financial supporter of al-Qaida. The articles tried to show that he had links to Russian and Italian mafias.

The articles were written by Mark Mitchell and published on the website – owned and published by Byrne- which reports on criminal financial conspiracies.

In its 2016 judgment in favour of the NRI business, Justice Kenneth Affleck of Vancouver-based British Columbia Supreme Court had said: “Mitchell, Byrne and Deep Capture LLC engaged in a calculated and ruthless campaign to inflict as much damage on Nazerali’s reputation as they could achieve.

“It is clear on the evidence that their intention was to conduct a vendetta in which the truth about Nazerali himself was of no consequence.”

The American blockchain investor challenged the judgment in the Supreme Court of Canada which last week threw it out.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh100@gmail.com)

—IANS

YouTube to invest $25mn in countering fake news

YouTube to invest $25mn in countering fake news

YouTubeSan Francisco : Video sharing platform YouTube has announced that it will invest $25 million to fight against fake news, especially for the urgent coverage of breaking news.

YouTube, which is owned by Google, said on Monday that this investment will be part of the Google News Initiative (GNI), first introduced in March by the tech giant to help the media and to deal with fake news, reports Efe news.

In addition, YouTube presented a series of new features on its website to help users avoid hoaxes.

Beginning in the coming weeks, when YouTube users in the US search for videos on breaking news, they will see short excerpts of the news as well as the links to different media.

In addition, YouTube will provide links to Wikipedia or the Encyclopedia Britannica with controversial videos or conspiratorial issues, such as the Moon landing.

“We remain committed to working with the journalism community to build a more sustainable video ecosystem for news organizations,” said YouTube Chief Product Officer Neal Mohan and YouTube’s Chief Business Officer, Robert Kyncl.

The two admitted that “there is a lot of work to do”, but underlined that they will try to “provide a better experience to users who come to YouTube every day to learn more about what is happening in the world from a diversity of sources”.

—IANS

Fake news operation to destabilise government uncovered in Indonesia

Fake news operation to destabilise government uncovered in Indonesia

Muslim Cyber ArmyJakarta : The police in Indonesia believe they have uncovered a clandestine fake news operation designed to destabilise the government and corrupt the political process, a media report said on Tuesday.

In a string of arrests across the archipelago in recent weeks, authorities have revealed the inner workings of a self-proclaimed cyber-jihadi network known as the Muslim Cyber Army (MCA), the Guardian report said.

The network is accused of spreading fake news and hate speeches to inflame religious and ethnic schisms, fan paranoia around gay men, lesbians, alleged communists and Chinese people and spread defamatory content to undermine the President.

The police have said that the network was orchestrated through a central Whatsapp group called the “Family MCA”.

One wing was tasked with stockpiling divisive content to disseminate, while a separate “sniper” team was employed to hack accounts and spread computer viruses on the electronic devices of their opponents.

In the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, among the top five biggest users of Facebook and Twitter globally, some say it is unsurprising that rising religiosity and racial division is playing out viciously online, according to the Guardian report.

It is in this environment that the Muslim Cyber Army was born and has since thrived, in a digital ecosystem flush with bots, fake accounts and lies.

The network, which functioned between July and November 2017, had all the tell-tale signs of a bot, or network of semi-automated accounts.

Posts were often identical in nature, with the same text, meme or hashtag repeated dozens of times.

The accounts would sometimes tweet up to 30 times a day. All accounts were opaque, with no name or location, and followed identifiable patterns.

—IANS