Singh warns of dangers of social media
The use of "social media to aggravate the communal situation is a new challenge," Singh told a conference of senior police officials in New Delhi.
"We need to fully understand how these new media are used by miscreants... and devise strategies to counter the propaganda that is carried out by these new means," he said.
Tens of thousands of migrant workers and students from India's northeast fled last month from the high-tech centre of Bangalore and other southern cities.
The unprecedented exodus was triggered by inflammatory text messages and videos posted online which warned that Muslims would target them in reprisal for deadly clashes between the tribals and Muslims in remote Assam state.
The government imposed a two-week ban on bulk messages that ended in late August and blocked some Internet pages to halt the spread of incendiary material that could fuel tensions.
Ethnic clashes in India's northeastern state of Assam between the Bodo tribals and Muslims have claimed around 90 lives and prompted some 400,000 people to take refuge in camps.
The use of the text messages and videos posted online to stir up fears have been deeply alarming to Indian authorities.
Singh also spoke of "increasing infiltration attempts" into Indian Kashmir and across India's international border with Pakistan as the South Asian rivals held peace talks in Islamabad.
The warning came as Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna was on a three-day visit to Pakistan, where he was to hold talks with his Pakistani counterpart Hina Rabbani Khar.
While violence in Indian Kashmir has declined, militants are "maintaining their ability to use the sea route" to launch an attack against India, Singh warned.
COMMENTS (8)
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ
1732626034-0/BeFunky-collage-(92)1732626034-0-165x106.webp "article")
1732618327-2/Untitled-design-(7)1732618327-2-270x192.webp "instagram adds live location sharing and nicknames to dms")
Singh warns of dangers of social media
Because Social Media warns of "dangers of Congress Party to India"
Ridiculous that leaders of the sub-continent consider social-media to be dangerous, not the corruption. Yes, social-media has problems but there are not many throats to choke, if there are enough cases of abuse. Moreover, it is likely that rich and famous may be affected more by this, less likely that masses will have problems.
A comment to show concerns to address problems of masses suffering due to corruption would have been appreciable, rather than problems of the elite. Majority of your people live in "dangerous" sanitary conditions, but are still forced to pay bribe. They don't have access to clean water Sir, leave alone access to a computer or social-media.
The Congress Party sycophants do not like the fact that Sonia Gandhi has more dislikes than likes on her Facebook page. And so they force Dr. Singh to say things. But then I do not excuse Dr. Singh for doing their bidding.
The best way to prevent misuse is to seek arrest of the miscreants and prosecute them. The existing laws in the book are good enough and the precedence in the courts was already set in US and UK courts.
Miscreants always get embolden if the arrest and prosecution are delayed.
The best thing going for prosecution in electronic media crime is a trail of evidences linking miscreants from Katmandu to Timbakktu.
Yes Mr PM, for ineffective and inefficient everything can be challenging. Problem is not social media Mr PM, it's the lack of trust... Not many in India believe what you or any ministers say, that's the problem.
Pointless monologue - India cannot remain permanently on the backfoot. Social media is an unpredictable animal that functions similarly everywhere and we need to learn proactively from other progressive countries instead of whining about it. As regards the other dangers, they are old hat and telling the nation about them does not absolve the govt of the responsibility to beef up defense on land and sea.