The dead professor and the vast Indian sponsored disinformation campaign against Pakistan

[xyxmt]

when I read the title i thought Parvez hoodbhoy died, I was about to tweet my condolences...glad i read the article, unlike our president

 

[Sine Nomine]

Thankyou Disinfo lab,though what you have done should have been done by lumber 1...But alas
@Areesh @Zarvan

 

[hualushui]

Is there anything about this expose on times of India ?

Impersonating dead people and celebrities, creating their fake text and fake social accounts, spreading fake news made in India.
Fake news has been continuously produced for 15 years in an attempt to influence the political process of the United Nations and other countries.
What a shameless practice.

 

[Falcon26]

India and Indians are obsessed with Pakistan. Spending 15 years to malign Pakistan shows the ways the Indian psyche remains obsessed with a nation 10x smaller than it.

For all the talk about “rising india” and Pakistan not being a threat, Pakistan continues to torment the minds of the Hindu nationalists.

 

[That Guy]

I want everyone to keep in mind, what India has done is grounds for sanctions on Indian media and Indian intelligence, if not the Indian government.

If the EU doesn't act, then you'll know what the EU's priorities are.

I'm not holding my breath that India is gonna face any sort of consequences for this.

 

[El Sidd]

Who will hold people responsible for Aman Ka Tamasha?

Everyone knows that only the Elite are bondage to Indian needs as their businesses intertwine with the Indians and India.

Most of the people who take part in this are well connected in power corridors and how nationalism is used as a tool of mass trickery by them.

From the military dictator to the colonial leftover tribal chieftains, everyone of them service India for the right price.

Thankyou Disinfo lab,though what you have done should have been done by lumber 1...But alas
@Areesh @Zarvan

There are 100s of media channels in Pakistan who use the same platform as most state sponsored Indian television.

Most of the media licenses were awarded by Pirouz Mushraf after he shook Vajpaye hand.

 

[Srinivas]

Anyone interested in these articles, Chinese seems trying hard by yelling these days.

The dead professor and the vast pro-India disinformation campaign

A Harvard icon and fake media have been used in a global campaign to serve Indian interests, research reveals.

www.bbc.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/1336642899006681088

A dead professor and numerous defunct organisations were resurrected and used alongside at least 750 fake media outlets in a vast 15-year global disinformation campaign to serve Indian interests, a new investigation has revealed.
The man whose identity was stolen was regarded as one of the founding fathers of international human rights law, who died aged 92 in 2006.
"It is the largest network we have exposed," said Alexandre Alaphilippe, executive director of EU DisinfoLab, which undertook the investigation and published an extensive report on Wednesday.
The network was designed primarily to "discredit Pakistan internationally" and influence decision-making at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and European Parliament, EU DisinfoLab said.
EU DisinfoLab partially exposed the network last year but now says the operation is much larger and more resilient than it first suspected.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

There is no evidence the network is linked to India's government, but it relies heavily on amplifying content produced on fake media outlets with the help of Asian News International (ANI) - India's largest wire service and a key focus of the investigation.
The EU DisinfoLab researchers, who are based in Brussels, believe the network's purpose is to disseminate propaganda against India's neighbour and rival Pakistan. Both countries have long sought to control the narrative against the other.
Last year, the researchers uncovered 265 pro-Indian sites operating across 65 countries, and traced them back to a Delhi-based Indian holding company, the Srivastava Group (SG).
Wednesday's report, titled Indian Chronicles, reveals that the operation, run by SG, is spread over at least 116 countries and has targeted members of the European Parliament and the United Nations - raising questions about how much EU and UN staff knew about SG's activities, and whether they could have done more to counter those activities, especially after last year's report.
Mr Alaphilippe said the EU DisinfoLab researchers had never encountered such co-ordination between different stakeholders to spread disinformation.
"During the last 15 years, and even after being exposed last year, the fact that this network managed to operate so effectively shows the sophistication and the drive of the actors behind Indian Chronicles," he said.

image captionSome of the many news sites the investigation found to be fake
"You need more than a few computers to plan and sustain such an action," he said.
The researchers cautioned against "definitively attributing Indian Chronicles to some specific actors such as Indian intelligence services" without further investigation.
Ben Nimmo, a disinformation network expert, told the BBC the uncovered network was "one of the most persistent and complex operations" he had seen, but he too was wary of attributing it to a specific actor.
Mr Nimmo, who is director of investigations at digital monitoring firm Graphika, cited previous examples of privately-run large-scale troll operations. "Just because they're big, it doesn't necessarily mean they're directly run by the state," he said.
The BBC approached the Indian government for comment but had received no response by the time of publication.
Of ghosts and defunct NGOs
One of the most important findings of the open-source investigation was establishing direct links between the Srivastava Group (SG) and at least 10 UN-accredited NGOs, along with several others, which were used to promote Indian interests and criticise Pakistan internationally.
"In Geneva, these think tanks and NGOs are in charge of lobbying, of organising demonstrations, speaking during press conferences and UN side-events, and they were often given the floor at the UN on behalf of the accredited organisations," the report says.

The investigation shows that the operation led by SG began in late 2005, a few months after the UNHRC was founded in its current form.
One particular NGO which caught the eye of the researchers was the Commission to Study the Organisation of Peace (CSOP). The CSOP was founded in the 1930s and won UN-accreditation in 1975 but became inactive later in the 1970s.
The investigation found that a former chairman of the CSOP - Prof Louis B Sohn, one of the 20th Century's leading international law scholars and a Harvard Law faculty member for 39 years - was listed under the name Louis Shon as a CSOP participant at the UNHRC session in 2007 and at a separate event in Washington DC in 2011.
The listings shocked the researchers because Prof Sohn died in 2006.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTHARVARD LAW SCHOOL
image captionLouis B Sohn "appeared" at events years after he died

The authors dedicated their investigation to the professor's memory, writing that his name had been "usurped by the malicious actors in this report". They said CSOP "had been resurrected, and its identity hijacked in 2005 by the same actors depicted in our first investigation".
The investigation also shows there were several hundred pro-Indian interventions by the non-accredited NGOs, which were repeatedly given the floor at the UNHRC on behalf of the accredited organisations, pursuing the same agenda of maligning Pakistan.
On other occasions, NGOs and organisations which seemingly had nothing to do with Pakistan or India according to their stated objectives would get the opportunity to speak at the UNHRC and target Pakistan.
In March 2019, during the UNHRC's 40th session, United Schools International (USI), another UN-accredited organisation with direct links to SG, allowed its slot to be used by Yoana Barakova, a research analyst with an Amsterdam-based think-tank called the European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS).
Ms Barakova spoke about "atrocities committed by Pakistan" during the session. She told the BBC that EFSAS was a partner with USI and she was "not responsible for organisational logistics". The BBC received no reply when it contacted the director of EFSAS, who also represented USI at the same session to criticise Pakistan.

• Vast pro-Indian 'propaganda' network exposed
• Outrage over right-wing Euro-MPs' Kashmir visit
• India buzzes with fake news of 'civil war' in Pakistan
• Fake pro-China accounts exposed

The primary news agency re-packaging and boosting pro-India content related to SG appears to be ANI, established in 1971, which describes itself as "South Asia's leading multimedia news agency, with more than 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe". Indian news media, especially broadcast media, thrive on content provided by ANI.
EU DisinfoLab found at least 13 instances of ANI re-publishing mostly anti-Pakistan and sometimes anti-China op-eds by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), originally published on EU Chronicle, one of the fake news sites linked to SG.
EU Chronicle was born in May this year when EP Today, a site flagged in the previous disinformation report, was simply discontinued and renamed.
The EU DisinfoLab report said: "The actors behind the operation hijacked the names of others, tried to impersonate regular media such as the EU Observer... used the letterhead of the European Parliament, registered websites under avatars with fake phone numbers, provided fake addresses to the United Nations, created publishing companies to print books of the think-tanks they owned.
"They used layers of fake media that would quote and republish one another. They used politicians who genuinely wanted to defend women or minority rights to ultimately serve geopolitical interests and gave a platform to far-right politicians when convergent objectives could be reached."

IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP
image captionProtesters demonstrate against Pakistan outside the UNHRC in Geneva last year
Mr Alaphilippe said the news agency ANI was being used to give legitimacy to the entire "influence operation", which relied "more on ANI than on any other distribution channel" to give it "both credibility and a wide reach to its content".
ANI's news reports have found space in many mainstream Indian news outlets and publishers. Its content was further reproduced on more than 500 fake media websites across 95 countries, the researchers found.
Demonstrations in Europe conducted by organisations linked to the Srivastava Group have also been covered by ANI, as well as by fake media websites linked to SG.
Focus on the EU and UN
According to the findings of the investigation, the disinformation network had a two-pronged strategy to spread influence.
In Geneva, the think-tanks and NGOs were in charge of lobbying and protesting, and taking the floor at the UNHRC on behalf of accredited organisations.
In Brussels, the focus was on the MEPs, who were taken on international trips and solicited to write "exclusive" op-eds for fake outlets like EU Chronicle, which would then be amplified using ANI, the researchers found.
A group of MEPs appear regularly in the investigation. One of them, French MEP Thierry Mariani, has written two op-eds for EU Chronicle and was also part of a controversial visit to Indian-administered Kashmir last year.
"If the Indian government is behind the newspaper [EU Chronicle], it is not my problem," Mr Mariani, a member of France's far-right National Rally, told the BBC.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTPIB
image captionOrganisers and delegation members met Indian PM Narendra Modi during the MEPs' controversial 2019 Kashmir trip
"I sign what I want and I feel, it is my opinion. I have connections in [India's governing] Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and I support the government of [Narendra] Modi," he said.
Two other MEPs named in the report - Angel Dzhambazki from Bulgaria and Grzegorz Tobiszowski from Poland - denied having written op-eds that were published on EU Chronicle.
The articles under their names were also reproduced on ANI.

• How to spot a bot
• The human cost of 'fake news'
• Seven ways to stop bad information

Asked what the EU is doing to fight disinformation networks, EU spokesperson on foreign affairs Peter Stano pointed to the action taken to expose EP Today last year.
"Exposing the disinformation and those who spread it is one of our main instruments," he told the BBC. "We will continue to identify them and call them out."
But he said questions about finances and transparency of NGOs registered in Brussels were for Belgian authorities to answer.
Rolando Gomez, a spokesperson for the UNHRC, told the BBC that it was the prerogative of NGOs to raise whichever issue they wish to address and whoever they grant space to speak on the floor.
"There are no rules stating that an NGO must speak to specific issues. Doing so would amount to infringing on their freedom of speech," Mr Gomez said.

image captionThe International Institute of Non-aligned Studies is UN-accredited and openly linked with the Srivastava Group
Gary Machado, managing director of EU DisinfoLab, said he thought the muted reaction to the revelation of the disinformation network was partly because it was "clearly managed by Indian stakeholders".
"Imagine if the same operation was run by China or Russia. How do you think the world would have reacted? Probably with international outrage, leading to public inquiries and probably sanctions," he told the BBC.
But the activities of MEPs named in the report prompted criticism from some of their colleagues.
MEP Daniel Freund from the Greens said fellow members needed to declare their activities.
"There have been at least 24 breaches of rules in the past years. Not a single violation has been sanctioned. So there is little incentive to respect the rules when the worst that can happen is to file a declaration after you have been caught," he said.
Another member, who did not want to be named, said MEPs contributing to sites like EU Chronicles had been identified as "election tourists".
"A ragtag group of MEPs from the bottom of the parliamentary barrel who prefer to travel on sponsored trips by unsavoury governments rather than invest in their mandate," the MEP told the BBC. "How PR stunts with such individuals could be even conceived as helpful is baffling."
The BBC put questions to ANI and to nine other MEPs who have written op-eds for the EU Chronicle and made visits to India, Bangladesh and the Maldives, but received no response.
Who are the Srivastavas - and what next?
The investigations from last year and this year show a man called Ankit Srivastava at the centre of the entire global operation that was uncovered. More than 400 domain names have been bought through Mr Srivastava's private email address or through email addresses belonging to his organisations, the EU DisinfoLab investigations found.

image captionThe Srivastava office gate, with the Indian Institute for Non-Aligned Studies and New Delhi Times on the right

Then, there's a case of the mysterious SG-owned tech firm Aglaya. Its website has been inaccessible since at least February this year but in the past the company has advertised products for "hacking/spy tools" and "information warfare services".
Aglaya's marketing brochure mentioned the ability to "hamper country level reputations" and described some of its services as "Cyber Nukes". In a 2017 interview with Forbes magazine, a man called Ankur Srivastava claimed he "only sold to Indian intelligence agencies".
It's unclear what relation, if any, he has to Ankit Srivastava.
A third Srivastava appears to be Dr Pramila Srivastava, chairperson of the group and mother of Ankit Srivastava.
Dr Harshindar Kaur, a paediatrician from the Indian state of Punjab, told the EU DisinfoLab researchers that in 2009 she had been invited to the UNHRC in Geneva to give a lecture on female foeticide when she was threatened by a woman called Dr P Srivastava, who claimed to be a "very senior government official from India".
Dr Kaur told the BBC it was Pramila Srivastava who had threatened her.
The BBC emailed Ankit Srivastava asking him to respond to this and the other allegations in the report, but received no reply. When the BBC visited the firm's offices in Delhi's Safdarjung Enclave, staff there would not answer questions.
What might happen to the network, or how it might evolve, in the light of the latest investigation is unclear.
The authors of Indian Chronicles say their findings "should serve as a call to action for decision-makers to put in place a relevant framework to sanction actors abusing international institutions".
Mr Alaphilippe said following the 2019 investigation there had been "no official communication, no sanction, nothing. This passivity gave a message to Indian Chronicles: you've been exposed, but no consequences".
"We think there should be consequences to disinformation and we expect actions to be taken. The biggest failure from institutions would be if another report is released next year on the same actors with the same techniques," he told the BBC.
"This would mean that EU institutions are ok with foreign interference."

 

[El Sidd]

India and Indians are obsessed with Pakistan. Spending 15 years to malign Pakistan shows the ways the Indian psyche remains obsessed with a nation 10x smaller than it.

For all the talk about “rising india” and Pakistan not being a threat, Pakistan continues to torment the minds of the Hindu nationalists.

The participants of this campaign can now easily cash in the Naraz Qabail Doctrine and be clean again.

Why should citizens who are powerless become a party to this circus?

Its not easy to just do shit and leave a country like Pakistan. Most of these people were offloaded by the GoP.

 

[hualushui]

Anyone interested in these articles, Chinese seems trying hard by yelling these days.

You are not ashamed of being exposed to fake news.

 

[El Sidd]

You are not ashamed of being exposed to fake news.

Indians consider it a religious duty to wage war of any and every kind on Pakistan.

 

[Srinivas]

You are not ashamed of being exposed to fake news.

Chinese are synonymous with the term 'fake', the question is why are chinese yelling all around the world against India. Are you not the super power?

why are you getting nervous each passing day?

lastly, I do not think anyone will care for these articles.

 

[colonel rajesh]

The dead professor and the vast pro-India disinformation campaign

A Harvard icon and fake media have been used in a global campaign to serve Indian interests, research reveals.

www.bbc.com

https://twitter.com/x/status/1336642899006681088

A dead professor and numerous defunct organisations were resurrected and used alongside at least 750 fake media outlets in a vast 15-year global disinformation campaign to serve Indian interests, a new investigation has revealed.
The man whose identity was stolen was regarded as one of the founding fathers of international human rights law, who died aged 92 in 2006.
"It is the largest network we have exposed," said Alexandre Alaphilippe, executive director of EU DisinfoLab, which undertook the investigation and published an extensive report on Wednesday.
The network was designed primarily to "discredit Pakistan internationally" and influence decision-making at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and European Parliament, EU DisinfoLab said.
EU DisinfoLab partially exposed the network last year but now says the operation is much larger and more resilient than it first suspected.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external sites.View original tweet on Twitter

There is no evidence the network is linked to India's government, but it relies heavily on amplifying content produced on fake media outlets with the help of Asian News International (ANI) - India's largest wire service and a key focus of the investigation.
The EU DisinfoLab researchers, who are based in Brussels, believe the network's purpose is to disseminate propaganda against India's neighbour and rival Pakistan. Both countries have long sought to control the narrative against the other.
Last year, the researchers uncovered 265 pro-Indian sites operating across 65 countries, and traced them back to a Delhi-based Indian holding company, the Srivastava Group (SG).
Wednesday's report, titled Indian Chronicles, reveals that the operation, run by SG, is spread over at least 116 countries and has targeted members of the European Parliament and the United Nations - raising questions about how much EU and UN staff knew about SG's activities, and whether they could have done more to counter those activities, especially after last year's report.
Mr Alaphilippe said the EU DisinfoLab researchers had never encountered such co-ordination between different stakeholders to spread disinformation.
"During the last 15 years, and even after being exposed last year, the fact that this network managed to operate so effectively shows the sophistication and the drive of the actors behind Indian Chronicles," he said.

image captionSome of the many news sites the investigation found to be fake
"You need more than a few computers to plan and sustain such an action," he said.
The researchers cautioned against "definitively attributing Indian Chronicles to some specific actors such as Indian intelligence services" without further investigation.
Ben Nimmo, a disinformation network expert, told the BBC the uncovered network was "one of the most persistent and complex operations" he had seen, but he too was wary of attributing it to a specific actor.
Mr Nimmo, who is director of investigations at digital monitoring firm Graphika, cited previous examples of privately-run large-scale troll operations. "Just because they're big, it doesn't necessarily mean they're directly run by the state," he said.
The BBC approached the Indian government for comment but had received no response by the time of publication.
Of ghosts and defunct NGOs
One of the most important findings of the open-source investigation was establishing direct links between the Srivastava Group (SG) and at least 10 UN-accredited NGOs, along with several others, which were used to promote Indian interests and criticise Pakistan internationally.
"In Geneva, these think tanks and NGOs are in charge of lobbying, of organising demonstrations, speaking during press conferences and UN side-events, and they were often given the floor at the UN on behalf of the accredited organisations," the report says.

The investigation shows that the operation led by SG began in late 2005, a few months after the UNHRC was founded in its current form.
One particular NGO which caught the eye of the researchers was the Commission to Study the Organisation of Peace (CSOP). The CSOP was founded in the 1930s and won UN-accreditation in 1975 but became inactive later in the 1970s.
The investigation found that a former chairman of the CSOP - Prof Louis B Sohn, one of the 20th Century's leading international law scholars and a Harvard Law faculty member for 39 years - was listed under the name Louis Shon as a CSOP participant at the UNHRC session in 2007 and at a separate event in Washington DC in 2011.
The listings shocked the researchers because Prof Sohn died in 2006.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTHARVARD LAW SCHOOL
image captionLouis B Sohn "appeared" at events years after he died

The authors dedicated their investigation to the professor's memory, writing that his name had been "usurped by the malicious actors in this report". They said CSOP "had been resurrected, and its identity hijacked in 2005 by the same actors depicted in our first investigation".
The investigation also shows there were several hundred pro-Indian interventions by the non-accredited NGOs, which were repeatedly given the floor at the UNHRC on behalf of the accredited organisations, pursuing the same agenda of maligning Pakistan.
On other occasions, NGOs and organisations which seemingly had nothing to do with Pakistan or India according to their stated objectives would get the opportunity to speak at the UNHRC and target Pakistan.
In March 2019, during the UNHRC's 40th session, United Schools International (USI), another UN-accredited organisation with direct links to SG, allowed its slot to be used by Yoana Barakova, a research analyst with an Amsterdam-based think-tank called the European Foundation for South Asian Studies (EFSAS).
Ms Barakova spoke about "atrocities committed by Pakistan" during the session. She told the BBC that EFSAS was a partner with USI and she was "not responsible for organisational logistics". The BBC received no reply when it contacted the director of EFSAS, who also represented USI at the same session to criticise Pakistan.

• Vast pro-Indian 'propaganda' network exposed
• Outrage over right-wing Euro-MPs' Kashmir visit
• India buzzes with fake news of 'civil war' in Pakistan
• Fake pro-China accounts exposed

The primary news agency re-packaging and boosting pro-India content related to SG appears to be ANI, established in 1971, which describes itself as "South Asia's leading multimedia news agency, with more than 100 bureaus in India, South Asia and across the globe". Indian news media, especially broadcast media, thrive on content provided by ANI.
EU DisinfoLab found at least 13 instances of ANI re-publishing mostly anti-Pakistan and sometimes anti-China op-eds by Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), originally published on EU Chronicle, one of the fake news sites linked to SG.
EU Chronicle was born in May this year when EP Today, a site flagged in the previous disinformation report, was simply discontinued and renamed.
The EU DisinfoLab report said: "The actors behind the operation hijacked the names of others, tried to impersonate regular media such as the EU Observer... used the letterhead of the European Parliament, registered websites under avatars with fake phone numbers, provided fake addresses to the United Nations, created publishing companies to print books of the think-tanks they owned.
"They used layers of fake media that would quote and republish one another. They used politicians who genuinely wanted to defend women or minority rights to ultimately serve geopolitical interests and gave a platform to far-right politicians when convergent objectives could be reached."

IMAGE COPYRIGHTAFP
image captionProtesters demonstrate against Pakistan outside the UNHRC in Geneva last year
Mr Alaphilippe said the news agency ANI was being used to give legitimacy to the entire "influence operation", which relied "more on ANI than on any other distribution channel" to give it "both credibility and a wide reach to its content".
ANI's news reports have found space in many mainstream Indian news outlets and publishers. Its content was further reproduced on more than 500 fake media websites across 95 countries, the researchers found.
Demonstrations in Europe conducted by organisations linked to the Srivastava Group have also been covered by ANI, as well as by fake media websites linked to SG.
Focus on the EU and UN
According to the findings of the investigation, the disinformation network had a two-pronged strategy to spread influence.
In Geneva, the think-tanks and NGOs were in charge of lobbying and protesting, and taking the floor at the UNHRC on behalf of accredited organisations.
In Brussels, the focus was on the MEPs, who were taken on international trips and solicited to write "exclusive" op-eds for fake outlets like EU Chronicle, which would then be amplified using ANI, the researchers found.
A group of MEPs appear regularly in the investigation. One of them, French MEP Thierry Mariani, has written two op-eds for EU Chronicle and was also part of a controversial visit to Indian-administered Kashmir last year.
"If the Indian government is behind the newspaper [EU Chronicle], it is not my problem," Mr Mariani, a member of France's far-right National Rally, told the BBC.

IMAGE COPYRIGHTPIB
image captionOrganisers and delegation members met Indian PM Narendra Modi during the MEPs' controversial 2019 Kashmir trip
"I sign what I want and I feel, it is my opinion. I have connections in [India's governing] Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and I support the government of [Narendra] Modi," he said.
Two other MEPs named in the report - Angel Dzhambazki from Bulgaria and Grzegorz Tobiszowski from Poland - denied having written op-eds that were published on EU Chronicle.
The articles under their names were also reproduced on ANI.

• How to spot a bot
• The human cost of 'fake news'
• Seven ways to stop bad information

Asked what the EU is doing to fight disinformation networks, EU spokesperson on foreign affairs Peter Stano pointed to the action taken to expose EP Today last year.
"Exposing the disinformation and those who spread it is one of our main instruments," he told the BBC. "We will continue to identify them and call them out."
But he said questions about finances and transparency of NGOs registered in Brussels were for Belgian authorities to answer.
Rolando Gomez, a spokesperson for the UNHRC, told the BBC that it was the prerogative of NGOs to raise whichever issue they wish to address and whoever they grant space to speak on the floor.
"There are no rules stating that an NGO must speak to specific issues. Doing so would amount to infringing on their freedom of speech," Mr Gomez said.

image captionThe International Institute of Non-aligned Studies is UN-accredited and openly linked with the Srivastava Group
Gary Machado, managing director of EU DisinfoLab, said he thought the muted reaction to the revelation of the disinformation network was partly because it was "clearly managed by Indian stakeholders".
"Imagine if the same operation was run by China or Russia. How do you think the world would have reacted? Probably with international outrage, leading to public inquiries and probably sanctions," he told the BBC.
But the activities of MEPs named in the report prompted criticism from some of their colleagues.
MEP Daniel Freund from the Greens said fellow members needed to declare their activities.
"There have been at least 24 breaches of rules in the past years. Not a single violation has been sanctioned. So there is little incentive to respect the rules when the worst that can happen is to file a declaration after you have been caught," he said.
Another member, who did not want to be named, said MEPs contributing to sites like EU Chronicles had been identified as "election tourists".
"A ragtag group of MEPs from the bottom of the parliamentary barrel who prefer to travel on sponsored trips by unsavoury governments rather than invest in their mandate," the MEP told the BBC. "How PR stunts with such individuals could be even conceived as helpful is baffling."
The BBC put questions to ANI and to nine other MEPs who have written op-eds for the EU Chronicle and made visits to India, Bangladesh and the Maldives, but received no response.
Who are the Srivastavas - and what next?
The investigations from last year and this year show a man called Ankit Srivastava at the centre of the entire global operation that was uncovered. More than 400 domain names have been bought through Mr Srivastava's private email address or through email addresses belonging to his organisations, the EU DisinfoLab investigations found.

image captionThe Srivastava office gate, with the Indian Institute for Non-Aligned Studies and New Delhi Times on the right

Then, there's a case of the mysterious SG-owned tech firm Aglaya. Its website has been inaccessible since at least February this year but in the past the company has advertised products for "hacking/spy tools" and "information warfare services".
Aglaya's marketing brochure mentioned the ability to "hamper country level reputations" and described some of its services as "Cyber Nukes". In a 2017 interview with Forbes magazine, a man called Ankur Srivastava claimed he "only sold to Indian intelligence agencies".
It's unclear what relation, if any, he has to Ankit Srivastava.
A third Srivastava appears to be Dr Pramila Srivastava, chairperson of the group and mother of Ankit Srivastava.
Dr Harshindar Kaur, a paediatrician from the Indian state of Punjab, told the EU DisinfoLab researchers that in 2009 she had been invited to the UNHRC in Geneva to give a lecture on female foeticide when she was threatened by a woman called Dr P Srivastava, who claimed to be a "very senior government official from India".
Dr Kaur told the BBC it was Pramila Srivastava who had threatened her.
The BBC emailed Ankit Srivastava asking him to respond to this and the other allegations in the report, but received no reply. When the BBC visited the firm's offices in Delhi's Safdarjung Enclave, staff there would not answer questions.
What might happen to the network, or how it might evolve, in the light of the latest investigation is unclear.
The authors of Indian Chronicles say their findings "should serve as a call to action for decision-makers to put in place a relevant framework to sanction actors abusing international institutions".
Mr Alaphilippe said following the 2019 investigation there had been "no official communication, no sanction, nothing. This passivity gave a message to Indian Chronicles: you've been exposed, but no consequences".
"We think there should be consequences to disinformation and we expect actions to be taken. The biggest failure from institutions would be if another report is released next year on the same actors with the same techniques," he told the BBC.
"This would mean that EU institutions are ok with foreign interference."

great job by mr Srivastava if this news is so important .

 

[hualushui]

Chinese are synonymous with the term 'fake', the question is why are chinese yelling all around the world against India. Are you not the super power?

why are you getting nervous each passing day?

lastly, I do not think anyone will care for these articles.

lastly, I do not think anyone will care for these articles.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1337000187521236997

great job by mr Srivastava if this news is so important .

Shameless Indians, proud of fake news

 

[Srinivas]

China is a global pariah now, isolated and facing a threat of war from east and himalayas.

Chinese ambassador was shamed infront of EU crowd when he tried to warn czechs like they are used to do weak china men in their country.

Chinese fox warrior diplomats are being named and shamed all over the world, here you are pointing fingers at India?

covid 19 is spread from wuhan and people are wondering how come this virus has not spread to beijing or shangai but all over world.

Austalian pm named and shamed china.
Japanese pm refused to meet shejinping.
ASEAN did not honor the chinese agreements.
Indonesia said good bye to chinese 10 billion project and kicked you out.
Indonesia refused to share the naval base with China.
Phillipines is reorienting against China.
south koreans hate you because chinese are trying to claim their pickle.
Kyrgyzstan warned chinese for the spread of covid.
czech republicans warned china.
Taiwan warned china.
Japan warned china.
south american countries are shooting at chinese fleet for stealing their fish.
Africans said, one should be a drunk man to agree the terms of chinese, planning to kick you out.
Russia refused to go ahead to supply you with S400.

Austalian pm warning china and asking apology

the block buster,
Germans warning chinese FM to not to bad mount in EU

Awe... kuch koo

did these hurt and making you to turn against India?

Lastly Nepalese PM refused to meet your defense minister .... HAHA

View attachment 695134View attachment 695135

https://twitter.com/x/status/1337000187521236997

Shameless Indians, proud of fake news

 

[hualushui]

China is a global pariah now, isolated and facing a threat of war from east and himalayas.

Chinese ambassador was shamed infront of EU crowd when he tried to warn czechs like they are used to do weak china men in their country.

Chinese fox warrior diplomats are being named and shamed all over the world, here you are pointing fingers at India?

covid 19 is spread from wuhan and people are wondering how come this virus has not spread to beijing or shangai but all over world.

Austalian pm named and shamed china.
Japanese pm refused to meet shejinping.
ASEAN did not honor the chinese agreements.
Indonesia said good bye to chinese 10 billion project and kicked you out.
Indonesia refused to share the naval base with China.
Phillipines is reorienting against China.
south koreans hate you because chinese are trying to claim their pickle.
Kyrgyzstan warned chinese for the spread of covid.
czech republicans warned china.
Taiwan warned china.
Japan warned china.
south american countries are shooting at chinese fleet for stealing their fish.
Africans said, one should be a drunk man to agree the terms of chinese, planning to kick you out.
Russia refused to go ahead to supply you with S400.

Austalian pm warning china and asking apology

the block buster,
Germans warning chinese FM to not to bad mount in EU

Awe... kuch koo

did these hurt and making you to turn against India?

Lastly Nepalese PM refused to meet your defense minister .... HAHA

You win forever, verbally