'WhatsApp accounts belonging to Kashmiri users have begun to expire as the region completed 120 days of an internet blockade on Tuesday. The social media platform deletes accounts that have stayed inactive for that long. Several Twitter users shared screenshots showing that friends and family members based in Kashmir had exited WhatsApp groups they had been part of – most likely without their knowledge. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed to BuzzFeed News that the disappearances from WhatsApp groups were the result of the company’s policy on inactive accounts.
'The Madhya Pradesh police has conducted raids at the office of an Indore-based evening newspaper run by a local entrepreneur, along with other business concerns that he and his family own. The newspaper, Sanjha Lokswami, owned by Jitendra Soni, had reportedly published photographs of a former BJP minister in the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government and the state principal secretary, considered a close confidant of the former chief minister, in a compromising position with some women, and simultaneously also released their video clips on YouTube.
'The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students’ protests against the new hostel manual and fee hike have become a talking point across the country, drawing varied reactions from all sections of society. As students continue raising their demand for a complete rollback of the proposed hike, the University has become the new favourite target of the fake news factory. Famous radio jockey Raunac, who voices the on air character ‘Baua’, recently released a video endorsing multiple fake claims regarding JNU and its students.
'To restore their internet connections, which have been suspended for four months now, companies have to give the government a signed bond saying that internet usage will be for “business purposes” only. They must also promise to share all the “contents” and “infrastructure” of the internet as and when required by the “security agencies”. The bond, a copy of which is with The Wire, consists of six points, including that no encrypted file containing any sort of videos or photos will be uploaded.
'In what appears to be yet another case of the government punishing journalists for their critical writing, the Telangana police charged N. Venugopal, editor of Telugu monthly journal Veekshanam, under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and The Telangana Public Security Act, among other stringent laws. Although he has not been arrested, he was booked as the seventh accused in a case of Maoist conspiracy against the state. Venugopal has been a severe critic of the majoritarian leanings of the Modi government as well as of the K.
'The Press Council of India’s letter to the Andhra Pradesh government in the first week of November expressing concern about an order that allows the secretaries of all department to file defamation cases against journalists was an indication of the intense pressure faced by the state’s media. The letter has also served to draw attention to more direct, brutal attacks on journalists in the state. Over the past five months, there have been four attacks on journalists, one of whom died after an assault...'
'Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns a week-old wave of online threats and hate messages targeting this well-known Indian journalist and calls on the authorities to shed light on the possible complicity of members of the police force... It began when Rana Ayyub, who is nowadays a Washington Post columnist, posted a cryptic message on Twitter on 8 November about the ruling that India’s supreme court was due to issue the next day on a fraught 30-year-old dispute between Hindus and Muslims over a religious site in the northern city of Ayodhya.
'An EU non-profit group researching disinformation campaigns has said that the controversial European parliamentarians’ visit to Kashmir is linked to a network of fake local media networks and think-tanks across the world. Last month, the Indian government allowed a group of Members of European Parliament, a majority of whom were from far-right parties, to visit Kashmir for the first time since the state was put under lockdown following the reading down of Article 370...
'Republic TV and Zee News, among other channels, called the students ‘freeloaders’ for protesting against the steep fee hike... On November 11, Republic TV editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami hosted a primetime segment on the “chaos and mayhem” created by students of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi “for a mere Rs 290 fee hike”. As the channel flashed the hashtag #JNUFreebies, he asked if “those who want to freeload forever” should be allowed to “hold a university and its administration to ransom”.
'In the upcoming Christian Bale-Matt Damon-starrer, Ford v Ferrari, the CBFC has asked the makers to blur out pictures of alcohol bottles and glasses containing alcohol from the frame. In images seen by HuffPost India, scenes that have alcohol bottles, both in the background and foreground, have been hastily pixelated. For instance, when a character is holding what appears to be a wine glass, the viewer only sees him holding an object, with the glass missing, effectively dampening the viewing experience.
