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Good Morning .  It took 19-year-old Trixie to speak out against a self proclaimed godman, popularly known as Karauli Sarkar Baba. 

"I was terrified,” she told Decode. Karauli Baba claims to have a cure for everything: Short height, Muslim ghosts, homosexuality. And how is he so popular? YouTube videos.

Scroll down to read more about the self-styled godman. 👇

In this edition: 🔢 How to verify government data, 🗣️ Harassment from loan recovery agents are on the rise, and 🤥 misinformation you almost fell for. Read on to find out more.

Question: How do you verify data/ numbers concerning the government? 

Answer: Go to the relevant department/ ministry's website and search online.

🤔 Doubt: What if you aren't able to get the desired result?

💡 Tip: Go to Lok Sabha/ Rajya Sabha's website. 

Finding Answers on Lok Sabha's Website

• On the Lok Sabha's website, go to Business > Questions > Questions & Answers

• Under Questions & Answers, you will see a detailed view of the questions asked in the Lok Sabha and the answers can be easily downloaded in the form of PDFs.

• You can also choose relevant filters to narrow down your search results: session-wise, member-wise. 

Similarly, answers can be found on Rajya Sabha's website as well. 

🤥 The Lie Count

21

Fact-Checks Published

📹 Videos were used to peddle 81% of the false claims while the rest used 🖼️ images (19%).

Read our Twitter thread to know the detailed analysis by Debraj Sarkar.

🤙 People Are Getting Threatening Calls For Loans That They Didn't Take 

🔖 Deepa*, a 40-year-old doctor from Delhi was horrified when she got a WhatsApp message of her face morphed into an obscene picture earlier this year. 

“It was a disconcerting experience,” she told Decode's Saurav Das narrating her experience of receiving harassing calls and messages from a loan recovery agent. 

The doctor from Delhi is not the only one who has experienced harassment from loan recovery agents working for banks and Non-Banking Financial Companies (NBFCs). 

They, unlike banks, cannot accept deposits from the public but can provide various financial services and products, including loans and insurance. 

• What are the reasons behind this?

• Can RBI help?

*Name changed to protect their identity 

Read More

🙏 How A Godman Who Claims To Cure Homosexuality Became Viral 

🔖 Santosh Singh Bhadoria, popularly known as Karauli Sarkar Baba, claims to have cure for everything— from cancer to short height to the ‘disease of homosexuality’. 

• The self-styled godman runs an Ashram in a village in Kanpur, in Uttar Pradesh. 

• He is also sort of a social media influencer with a number of Facebook, YouTube and Instagram pages dedicated to him. 

• Each of his videos get lakhs of views.

Read this profile by Vipul Kumar to know more about him.

Read More

🚫 Fake News You Almost Fell For

🔍 A viral message on social media claimed that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost 58 seats with a margin of less than 2,000 votes and 41 seats with a margin of 1,000 votes in the recently concluded Karnataka assembly elections. Read this fact-check by 🔗Mohammed Kudrati↗️ to find out the truth. 

🔍 An old video from Chopda city in Maharashtra of a Muslim man threatening a police constable was viral with the false claim that it's from a recent incident from Karnataka after the Congress won a majority in the assembly election. 🔗Anmol Alphonso↗️ debunked the claim. 

🔍 A video showing a group of women mercilessly beating a person was circulated with a false communal claim that a Muslim man is being attacked by some Hindu girls in Kerala because of his shameful conduct. Read this fact-check by 🔗Runjay Kumar & Sujith↗️. 

🔍 A screenshot of a video showing an Islamic flag being waved after the Congress party won the Karnataka elections with a clear majority went viral with the false claim that it shows jubilant supporters waving the Pakistani national flag to celebrate the win. Here's a fact-check by 🔗Mohammad Salman↗️. 

🅱️ Recommends

📖 This week's recommendation is: Responsible media technology and AI: challenges and research directions by Christoph Trattner, Dietmar Jannach, Enrico Motta et al.

This opinion paper highlights areas where traditional media is disrupted with innovations in tech that mark a paradigm shift in the relationship between content and consumer. The authors recommend research priorities, remedial technological interventions for global social problems that are believed to have been exacerbated with injudicious use of tech. 

Read More

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