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- India’s Cybercrime Gap & Nepal’s 'Nepo Baby' Trend
India’s Cybercrime Gap & Nepal’s 'Nepo Baby' Trend
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Hello,
The internet is a double-edged sword. A viral Reddit thread of a woman’s leaked videos pushed us to look into India’s cybercrime portal which is complicated and flawed. Meanwhile, in Nepal, a new form of digital activism is emerging, with ‘nepo baby’ reels becoming a powerful tool for young people to document corruption, expose inequality, and channel public anger.
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The claim: Ravi Laxmi Chitrakar, wife of former Nepal PM Jhala Nath Khanal died after their house was set on fire.
Who claimed?: Several Indian media outlets including Times of India, NDTV, News18, India Today, Republic TV, The Tribune, Mint, India TV, and was also repeated by Indian YouTuber Dhruv Rathee, who cited Indian reports in his explainer on the ongoing protests.
What BOOM found
We found two Nepali news reports in NepalPress and Setopati quoting former Nepal minister Jeevan Ram Shrestha, who said that the condition of Chitrakar was improving at the hospital in Kirtipur.
BOOM’s Anmol Alphonso reached out to Nepal Fact Check, who spoke with Dr. Kiran Nakarmi, Director at the Nepal Cleft & Burn Center in Kirtipur. Dr. Nakarmi confirmed that Ravi Laxmi Chitrakar is alive but in critical condition and is undergoing treatment at the hospital.
In an interview with BBC News Nepali on September 11, Former Nepal PM Khanal stated that security personnel had rescued his wife unconscious and suffering burns from the blaze at his house, adding she is now on a ventilator in hospital.
DECODE
A Woman’s Leaked Private Videos Expose The Gap In India’s Cybercrime Portal
On August 26, 2025, a Reddit post in the TeenIndia and Kolkata communities went viral after a woman alleged that a phone repair shop in Kolkata had leaked her private videos.
What followed were weeks of relentless online harassment.
The leaked videos quickly spread across social media platforms, with the woman's Instagram account becoming ground zero for a disturbing mix of harassment and exploitation. While some users reached out to alert her about the compromised content, many others saw an opportunity to prey on her vulnerability.
Decode’s Swasti Chatterjee verified the existence of the leaked material and corroborated the incident through one of the Instagram users who had initially warned the victim about the breach.
The ‘Nepo Baby’ Trend Is Exposing Corruption In Nepal One Reel At A Time
Tale of Two Nepals: The Instagram reel opens with a split screen that has become the most viral format in Nepal: on one side, a politician’s son poses with $1,600 Louis Vuitton loafers. And on the other side, residents are shown crammed into slums, queuing for essentials, as they watch their earnings vanish in corruption scams.
Exposing the Elite: Across Nepal’s digital landscape, content creators have turned social media into a platform to vent their anger, methodically documenting politicians’ children and their lavish lifestyles in contrast to the citizens who fund them.
Each luxury purchase, every designer outfit and five-star hotel check-in gets catalogued, screenshotted and stitched into viral content that rakes up millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes.
Beyond the 'Gen-Z' Label: Although Nepal’s uprising has been branded a ‘Gen-Z protest’—referring to those aged 13 to 28 as of 2025—it reflects a broader regional pattern where anger over corruption and inequality has drawn in not only young people but entire societies, as seen in Bangladesh, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Hera Rizwan reports.
LAW, JUSTICE ET AL
Why The Public Safety Act Is Called A "Lawless Law" In Jammu & Kashmir
Jammu and Kashmir’s (J&K) legislator Mehraj Malik’s detention under the Public Safety Act, 1978 has ignited a storm. Even as the Opposition is calling out the BJP government, authorities have imposed prohibitory orders and suspended the internet in Doda district which Malik represents.
The Public Safety Act (PSA), 1978 is a preventive detention measure unique to J&K that allows the administration to arrest anybody who poses a threat to public order and detain them for a period of up to two years without a trial.
Advocate Shafiq Bhat said the state machinery is misusing the law. The PSA doesn’t require a trial or evidence and the state can send anybody under custody for upto two years,” Bhat told BOOM’s Ritika Jain. “This is a punishment without a trial,” he added.
So, what was the immediate trigger to detain Malik— the lone Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA in J&K? Find out.
EXPLAINED
Voter ID Data Was Used To Build Telangana’s Facial Recognition System, Finds Activist
A formal complaint has been lodged with the Chief Electoral Officer of Telangana, alleging that photographs collected for voter ID cards were illegally shared with the state government and repurposed to build a sweeping facial recognition system.
Independent researcher Srinivas Kodali, who filed the complaint, told BOOM’s Hera Rizwan that the images collected solely for elections are now being fed into RTDAI (Real Time Digital Authentication of Identity)—a facial recognition system already in use across government departments and tested during municipal polls. The allegations raise serious questions about legality, privacy, and voter rights.
'FAKE NEWS’ YOU ALMOST FELL FOR
🔍 An old video showing a large group of young men gripping the gates of the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu, as part of an annual religious festival is falsely being linked to ongoing protests in Nepal. Read 🔗 Swasti Chatterjee’s ↗️ fact-check.
🔍 Viral claim: Deputy Leader of Nobel Peace Prize says, "PM Narendra Modi is the biggest contender for the Nobel Peace Prize.” But, is this true? Find out in 🔗 Srijit Das’ ↗️ fact-check.
🔍 A photo showing a poster of Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath from a pro-monarchy rally in Nepal in March this year, has been revived and falsely linked to the recent anti-government protests in the country. 🔗 Srijit Das ↗️ debunked the claim.
🅱️ RECOMMENDS
This week's recommendation is: How does AI affect how we learn? A cognitive psychologist explains why you learn when the work is hard
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