Unregulated information & fake news can create disaster of un-imaginable proportion: VP Jagdeep Dhankhar

“Information is power, information is too dangerous a power, information is that power which has to be regulated,” the Vice President, Jagdeep Dhankharhe said while interacting with a group of Indian Information Service (IIS) officer trainees at the Vice President’s Enclave.

Underlining the need to regulate the information, he highlighted that unregulated information and fake news can create havoc or disaster of un-imaginable proportion.

The VP asked the young officers to act with lightning speed to neutralise misinformation, noting the social media responses by state actors for effectively countering the manipulated and false information.

“You have to nip the fake news in the bud,” he said.

Taking a note that such misinformation can be ruinous for an institution or an individual, Dhankhar asked “who protects the individual if there is a fake narrative set afloat on social media about an individual?” Describing the officer trainees as information warriors, he asked them to play on the front foot and save the privacy and reputation of the affected person or institution.

Further, he described India as the most vibrant democracy in the world, and said that legitimacy of a government depends on the amount of trust people have in it. Expressing concerns over the worrisome trend of floating of narratives to taint, tarnish, diminish, and demean our institutions by some “misguided souls”, VP called for neutralising them at the earliest.

“These sinister forces with pernicious agenda are operating in small number in the country and outside. You are the warriors,” he told the young officers.

Calling for effective countering of motivated narrative set afloat by global media, VP said that "we must never allow others to calibrate us. Global media setting biased narrative has to be blunted.” Emphasising the need to take India’s development narrative globally, he added that IIS is rightly placed to sculpt and promote “brand India” globally.

Noting that misinformation has emerged as a very big threat to peace, stability and is a challenge to democracy in an age of information revolution, he also expressed that such misinformation leaves great impact on the security and defence mechanism. Describing information as the most potent weapon and the fifth dimension of war, Dhankhar cautioned that “manipulative, divisive and agenda driven narrative peddled in our information space by proxies present a real danger to the sovereignty and integrity of our nation.”

Recognising that the right feedback from the ground helps in the formulation of the right polices, VP advised the probationers to update themselves with the latest technologies.

Sunil Kumar Gupta, Secretary to the Vice President of India, Sanjay Jaju, Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Anupama Bhatnagar, Director General, IIMC, Delhi, C Senthil Rajan, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting, senior officials and officer trainees of 2022 & 23 batches attended the event.