Tiranga rallies a huge success: BJP leader
Former MLC and BJP National co in-charge for Tamil Nadu and Karnataka Dr Ponguleti Sudhakar Reddy reviewed the progress of the ongoing Tiranga Rallies during a key coordination meeting of the District and State Tiranga Yatra Committee members in Selaiyur, East Tambaram, Chennai. Addressing the gathering, Sudhakar Reddy praised the valour of the Indian Armed Forces during Operation Sindoor and lauded the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He urged all party functionaries to involve citizens in the Tiranga Yatra as a show of solidarity and commitment to national unity and security.
The session was attended by BJP National General Secretary Dushyant Kumar Gautam; Dr Tamilisai Soundararajan, former Governor; H Raja, National Council Member; State Vice Presidents; and others.
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According to The Washington Post, in one case, a journalist reportedly received a WhatsApp message, allegedly from a public broadcaster, claiming that Pakistan's army chief had been arrested. Within minutes, this falsehood became prime-time 'breaking news.' Speaking to The Post, Former Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao described the atmosphere as one of 'hypernationalism' and 'parallel reality,' cautioning that the lack of authoritative government briefings created a vacuum often filled by speculation. But not everyone was misled. Also Read: India's Press Information Bureau, along with a 24/7 monitoring centre set up by the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, worked to counter misinformation in real time. Fact-checks were issued, social media handles were flagged, and broadcasters were warned for violating verification norms. Cyber Frontline: 1.5 million attacks, but only 150 breaches While social media churned with false claims, the real-time cyber threat was no less intense. According to Maharashtra Cyber, over 1.5 million cyber attacks were launched against Indian infrastructure by seven Pakistan-allied Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups. The barrage of cyberattacks not only came from the neighbouring country but from Bangladesh and the Middle Eastern region. Pro-Pakistan hacker collectives such as APT 36 (also known as Transparent Tribe), Pakistan Cyber Force, and Team Insane PK launched a coordinated series of cyberattacks in the days surrounding the crisis. Their arsenal included malware campaigns, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, GPS spoofing attempts, and website defacements aimed at sowing panic and disrupting public trust in India's digital infrastructure. According to officials familiar with the matter, India faced over 1.5 million intrusion attempts during this period. However, only 150 attacks were successful, a tiny fraction. Importantly, claims that the hackers had penetrated Mumbai's airport systems or Election Commission portals were found to be baseless. Addressing reporters, a senior official of Maharashtra Cyber debunked claims of hackers stealing data from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport in Mumbai, hacking aviation and municipal systems, and targeting the Election Commission website. "The probe discovered that cyber attacks on (government websites in) India decreased after India-Pakistan ceased hostilities, but not fully stopped. These attacks continue from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Morocco, and Middle Eastern countries," he said. The Indian government's 'Road of Sindoor' report, a classified cyber threat assessment, showed these attacks were part of a coordinated hybrid warfare strategy involving both digital and psychological warfare. India's response While the information war raged online, Indian armed forces maintained disciplined silence and strategic clarity. Official statements were sparse, but targeted. Operation Sindoor focused solely on dismantling terrorist infrastructure, confirmed in a press conference by Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, who clarified that India did not target civilian installations. Behind the scenes, India's cyber defence grid was activated, fact-checking units expanded, and social media protocols for military updates tightened. The government also advised citizens to avoid unverified content and rely only on official sources. AI fact-checkers As the misinformation torrent intensified, social media users increasingly turned to AI chatbots for verification, only to find more confusion and falsehoods. Platforms like xAI's Grok, OpenAI's ChatGPT, and Google's Gemini became common go-to tools for instant fact-checking amid the crisis. 'Hey @Grok, is this true?' became a viral plea on Elon Musk's platform X, reflecting the surge in users seeking quick debunks. However, these AI assistants often propagated misinformation themselves. Grok, under renewed criticism for inserting far-right conspiracy theories into unrelated answers, misidentified old video footage from Sudan's Khartoum airport as missile strikes on Pakistan's Nur Khan airbase during the conflict. Similarly, unrelated fire footage from Nepal was wrongly claimed as Pakistani military retaliation. McKenzie Sadeghi of the disinformation watchdog NewsGuard warned, 'The growing reliance on Grok as a fact-checker comes as X and other major tech companies have scaled back investments in human fact-checkers. Our research has repeatedly found that AI chatbots are not reliable sources for news and information, particularly when it comes to breaking news.' The Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University found that AI chatbots were 'generally bad at declining to answer questions they couldn't answer accurately, offering incorrect or speculative answers instead.' For instance, AFP fact-checkers in Uruguay asked Google's Gemini about an AI-generated image of a woman; it confirmed the image's authenticity but fabricated details about her identity and location. Truth is the first casualty, but not the last word The digital front of the India-Pakistan standoff reveals the complex landscape of modern warfare, where victory is measured not just in ground gained but in narrative controlled. Yet despite the storm of falsehoods, India's response, though understated, was layered, methodical, and largely effective. As the lines between social media warfare and statecraft blur, it's clear that the next great conflict won't just be fought with missiles, but with memes, metadata, and misinformation.
