India Misinformed: The True Story is a compilation of essays that exposes how propaganda works and how readers can catch these fake news

By Aatika H Jain

Misinformation and hoaxes, of late, have been used as a tool to create divisiveness, prejudice and hatred among the people of India, mainly for political gains. Fake news has often been spread through social networking sites, and has been the reason for several cases of mob violence, riots, lynching and public defamation. The propagation of propaganda has not only adversely affected the social fabric of the country but is also a grave threat to the Indian democracy and governing policies.

Written by a team of Alt News, India Misinformed: The True Story has been edited by Pratik Sinha, Sumaiya Shaikh and Arjun Sidharth. Alt News is a fact checking website launched in 2017 to fight the threat of fabricated news and misinformation, which has intensified with the widespread use of social media. The book unearths the pattern of lies, aptly supported by photos. Readers will be alarmed at the amount of lies they consume every day. While exposing the misinformation machinery, it attempts to help readers identify fake news and its sources. The book carries a foreword by eminent journalist Ravish Kumar and presents a powerful case against a plethora of lies and deception that we are fed on a daily basis by the propaganda machinery.

Was Nehru anti-Hindu? Has Modi been declared the most corrupt prime minister in the world? Is Sonia Gandhi the fourth richest woman in the world? Has Rahul Gandhi registered as a non-Hindu at the Somnath Temple? Are the treatments supported by the ministry of AYUSH backed by scientific evidence for their effectiveness? The readers would be astounded at the kind of fake news that has been circulated through social, print and graphic media. The book attempts to identify the sources of these political and historical misinformation and fabricated news. It lists several infamous cases of propaganda and its consequences. The reader is left with a feeling of helplessness that the law did not implement corrective measures in time.

India Misinformed presents you with a look into the murky world of propaganda and fabrication. Read this book to understand how the machinery of fake news operates, who the people behind it are and what to look for to detect half-baked truth