What Happened At KIIT After Nepali Student's Death?

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DECODE

Why AI Can’t Show A Left-Handed Person, But Can Fake History

At the AI Action Summit in Paris, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared an intriguing observation—Artificial Intelligence can’t generate images of left handed people. 

AI, for all its remarkable capabilities, can effortlessly interpret complex medical reports, yet it struggles to depict something as simple as a person writing with their left hand. 

Decode’s Hera Rizwan decided to test AI models like MetaAI and ChatGPT, and indeed, they confirmed PM Modi’s claim. Despite prompts to show images of a person using their left hand, none of the AI tools could generate that image. 

Experts explain that AI models learn from large datasets that often underrepresent left-handed individuals, leading to their invisibility in AI-generated images.

It Took Nearly Five Hours For Govt To Admit Stampede At New Delhi Station

What began as a seemingly ordinary evening at New Delhi Station quickly descended into chaos, as a stampede erupted on platform number 14 between 9:30 pm and 10:15 pm on Saturday, 15 February. One of the first SOS messages regarding the incident came from an X user named Dheeraj Raina, who posted at 7:59 pm, tagging Railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw. 

Delayed response and edited X posts: Later, at 12:54 am, a video allegedly showing the situation under control was shared by Amit Malviya, which was quickly refuted by another user, Himanshu Shandaliya. Meanwhile, the Lieutenant Governor edited his X post and removed mentions of city hospitals being placed on standby and the invocation of the Delhi Disaster Management Act in the revised version.

Stampede as a rumour: Earlier on Saturday night, ANI posted a statement from the CPRO of Northern Railways, denying the stampede, calling it “no stampede” and “only a rumor.” This post, published at 11:16 pm, has since been deleted. Also, when reports of a stampede surfaced on Saturday night, Union Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw initially referred to it as a “sudden rush” in a post on X. It wasn’t until 1:09 am that Vaishnaw acknowledged the stampede and the fatalities. Read Hera Rizwan’s report.

EXPLAINED

Abuse And Outrage: What Happened At KIIT After Nepali Student's Death?

The last few days have been a nightmare for 24-year-old Siddhant Sigdel, a student at Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), a premiere institute in Odisha. His 20-year-old cousin, a Computer Science student, who was studying at the same university died by suicide on 16 February. 

The complaint: Later that night, at 9:51 pm, Sigdel filed a police complaint, naming Advik Srivastava, a 21-year-old BTech (Mechanical) student from KIIT, as responsible for his cousin’s death. “There was enough proof and evidence about him. The entire college had seen them together and they always had problems. I knew how my sister suffered because of him,” Sigdel alleged.

Meanwhile, the death of the student sparked massive protests by Nepali students in Bhubaneshwar. The case has also been clouded by a flurry of online rumors.

Speculations on social media: A viral screenshot of an unverified document claims that a postmortem report found two semen samples in the victim’s body. However, while speaking to BOOM’s Swasti Chatterjee, Sigdel refuted these speculations, stating that the family has not yet received the official report. Investigating officer Pramila Marei also dismissed these claims, saying, “These are mere speculations. We cannot conclusively say anything until we receive the official postmortem report.”

'FAKE NEWS’ YOU ALMOST FELL FOR

🔍 A photo of a political worker and head of a Hindutva outfit in Uttar Pradesh, Manoj Srivastava went viral, misidentifying him as the father of Advik Srivastava (21), the accused arrested over the death of a female student at KIIT, Odisha. Read 🔗 Anmol Alphonso’s ↗️ fact-check.

🔍 Several viral posts on social media accused Karnataka's Congress-led state government of siphoning off Rs 445 crore from funds raised in Hindu temples, and giving Rs 330 crore to mosques and churches. What’s the truth? Find out in 🔗 Nidhi Jacob’s ↗️ fact-check.

🔍 Media outlets reported a false claim that a wedding was held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi for the first time in history. 🔗 Anmol Alphonso’s ↗️ debunked the claim.

🅱️ RECOMMENDS

This week's recommendation is: When Do Parties Lie? Misinformation and Radical-Right Populism Across 26 Countries

Verified By Boom is written by Divya Chandra, edited by Adrija Bose and designed by H Shiva Roy Chowdhury.

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