#FactCheck - False Claim about Video of Sadhu Lying in Fire at Mahakumbh 2025

Introduction
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In June 2026, the Government of India temporarily restricted access to Telegram amid concerns that the platform had been used to facilitate examination related malpractice, including the alleged circulation of leaked question papers during the NEET UG re examination. The move reignited a familiar debate about the responsibility of digital platforms for unlawful activities carried out through them.

Critics of such restrictions raise a fundamental question: if a traffic accident occurs on a road, do we shut down the road? If theft takes place inside a shopping mall, do we close the entire mall? By the same logic, is it reasonable to block a communication platform because some individuals misuse it? These questions lie at the heart of a broader conflict between state interests in maintaining public order and the protection of digital rights, privacy, and freedom of communication in an increasingly interconnected world.

The controversy surrounding Telegram therefore extends beyond a single examination or messaging application. It raises a deeper and more pressing question: who should bear responsibility for illegal acts committed through encrypted digital platforms, and where should the law draw the line between effective enforcement and the preservation of fundamental digital freedoms?

Beyond mere communication for millions of students in India, Telegram is a classroom in the digital sense, an archive for their notes, practice papers, lecture recordings, and community groups that hundreds of millions of candidates refer to every single day. Therefore, why on a routine day in June 2026 did the messaging app top every other channel? Temporary internet restriction on the platform had become necessary to stop examination-related malpractice like leakage of question papers and was temporarily suspended, with reports suggesting that this move by the government was on the occasion of the NEET-UG re-examination.

This ban once again brings up a bigger question that cannot be contained within one particular examination. When has it become okay to hold a communication platform responsible and accountable for illegal acts committed over it? Or are the perpetrators solely to blame, and the service can be prohibited? Ultimately, where is the line drawn between public interest, law enforcement, and digital rights and privacy? 

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End-to-End Encryption: Architecture and Benefits
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At the heart of these discussions of Telegram and other apps lies a technology referred to as "end-to-end encryption" or "E2EE." Quite literally, it means a message is locked with cryptography on the sender's device and can only be unlocked by the intended recipient. Not even the tech platform running the communication app can decipher it for everyone else; it just looks like random gibberish.

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The Process
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This kind of modern communication relies on public key cryptography. Each person has a public key they can share with anyone and a private key that stays only on their devices. When they send you a message, it is scrambled with crypto that can be unlocked by only your private key. WhatsApp and Signal, for example, use the Signal Protocol, which features "perfect forward secrecy" and is designed to protect communications from ever being unlocked even if one key is compromised. Telegram's approach is a bit unique. By default, Telegram messages aren't encrypted with end-to-end crypto; this only comes via an optional feature called "Secret Chats," a key difference in the regulatory debate.

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The Dark Side: Crime, Misuse, and the Moderation Dilemma

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The very features that make end-to-end messaging popular among everyday people are privacy, speed, anonymity, and mass reach which also make end-to-end messaging popular among criminals. That, unfortunately, is the catch for policymakers globally: The technology designed to protect innocent users is also the technology that facilitates criminal activity.

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3.1 Criminal Abuse

Telegram, in particular, has frequently come under fire for its role in hosting a spectrum of criminal activities, most notably in the recent controversy in India regarding NEET-UG 2026 examination papers where channels allegedly advertised leaked question papers for enormous sums, convincing desperate candidates. In these instances, messages could be altered or deleted using Telegram’s message editing feature, fabricating evidence of prior leaks. However, this extends to illicit marketplaces, drug trafficking, financial fraud, money laundering, and distributing other prohibited content. Telegram's usage in disseminating extremist propaganda and aiding criminal organizations is also frequently cited, leading to bans or restrictions in countries ranging from Brazil to Nepal to Somalia to Vietnam.

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3.2 The Moderation Dilemma

But the difficulty is not just with misuse; it’s also about effective moderation. Moderation, however, requires content transparency. Strong encryption is built to obscure just that. Many end-to-end messaging services like Signal and WhatsApp emphasize that even if they wanted to, they would have been able to decipher the content of a user’s message due to their architecture. Telegram has been in scrutiny for years due to its limited cooperation with law enforcement agencies because its default chats are not completely end-to-end encrypted, though there has been an attempt by Pavel Durov, the platform’s founder, to increase cooperation following his 2024 arrest in France.

This gives policymakers the following challenge: How can governments require increased access to fight crime without forcing tech companies to weaken security for everyone? As cryptographers point out, a specific "backdoor" intended to allow access to law enforcement officials can be easily exploited by hackers, foreign governments, and any other actor with nefarious intent.

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Comparison of Regulatory Approaches Worldwide

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4.1 Authoritarian Countries' Responses

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China, for instance, has had the app blocked as part of its strategy to control access to the internet since 2015, and Iran did so in 2018 when the app was used to help organize protests against the government. An infamous Russian bid to block Telegram in 2018 turned into a cautionary story. Trying to censor the service disrupted the IPs of millions of computers, including significant services like those run by Amazon and Google. The move was met by a surge of users turning to VPNs to get access. It’s an expensive, disruptive, and incomplete form of censorship.

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4.2 Democratic Countries' Approaches

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Democratic jurisdictions generally prefer targeted interventions. Telegram was suspended in Brazil in 2022 and 2023, though again, only in response to a judge’s order in relation to particular investigations, and was lifted when it came into compliance. The EU’s approach has been to build on an established approach of regulation by use of a broader legislative framework, including the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, aimed at platform liability rather than outlawing encryption outright.

 Meanwhile, the proposed scanning of encrypted communications has run into strong judicial headwinds, with the European courts stressing the danger of backdoors to privacy.

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4.3 The United Kingdom Approach

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The UK offers a middle way. With its Investigatory Powers Act, the government can oblige tech companies to collaborate in legitimate investigations. But this came to a head earlier this year with the case of Apple and the government's attempts to force it to unlock encrypted iCloud backups. Apple not only refused to reduce its encryption but also decided instead to disable some of its features for British users. This has created a problem for democracies across the world: how to balance access for investigators against the need to maintain the security that makes our systems safer.

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Judicial and Legislative Perspectives: India and Beyond

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In the Indian context, to have a perspective about the legal frameworks concerning content moderation, let’s explore some of the foundational decisions from the Supreme Court. Three decisions have laid the building block for digital rights laws: the first being Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015), where Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000, was upheld, but only by laying rigorous conditions on the review process and chance of challenging the said decision. Another important decision in this sphere is Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) which stated that the right to privacy is fundamental in nature under Article 21 of the Constitution and stipulated the constitutional requirements of legality, legitimacy, and proportionality against the state’s interventions in fundamental rights. The most recent important case law to consider, in this context, would be Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) which set certain limitations, such as any internet shut-downs or orders have to be temporary, proportional, and have scope for appeal. Further, the Supreme Court demanded transparency around any and all orders of blocking.

These principles of proportionality and legal limitations are highly pertinent to the Telegram issue, especially since Section 69A confers powers to block information in case of concerns about public order, national security, etc., but activists often cite this power to target specific content rather than entire platforms like Telegram. The ban on Telegram in June 2026 and disabling of message editing will force authorities to justify not only their statutory authority but also the need for proportionate means.

These aspects are amplified by IT Rules, 2021, which mandate that some instant messaging platforms may require identification of the ‘first originator’ of messages, and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, to protect digital personal data by ensuring it does not undermine national security exceptions to this end. 

Moreover, the use of encryption to ensure secure and private communications is becoming an important point of legal discourse globally. Recently, the European Court of Human Rights in Podchasov v. Russia (2024) held that mandating decryption on devices as a tool of investigative power constituted a disproportionate interference with an individual's right to privacy implying that while states may indeed have authority to regulate communication and digital services, any such measures limiting the scope of encryption will have to meet strict requirements of legality, necessity, and proportionality to be legally justifiable.

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Constitutional Validity of the Ban

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The government's case for a constitutional ban on Telegram rests upon its ability to satisfy the proportionality framework established by Puttaswamy and Anuradha Bhasin.

1. Legitimate aim:  The state's strong suit. This is the government's best argument. Protection of the integrity of NEET-UG, a high-stakes test with close to 2.4 million students, can indeed be a legitimate state objective. Given that there is evidence of channels that allegedly were involved in selling leaked question papers, the action is presumably justifiable under section 69A for preventing the incitement or occurrence of public disorder or preventing cognizable offenses.
2. Necessity: The National Testing Agency (NTA) itself admitted that localized removal of suspicious accounts on Telegram had already mitigated the risks, while Telegram insisted that it had independently taken down numerous channels. The fact that the block affected more than 150 million users in India, where the medium is widely used for personal communication and is also utilized on other platforms like WhatsApp, Discord, and Instagram to a similar or higher extent, raises the responsibility to justify a strict platform-wide ban. Moreover, there is a significant legal question regarding the state’s authority under section 69A to direct Telegram to disable its message-editing capability.
3. Proportionality and process: The block, even though it was temporary and intended to ensure fairness in the examination system, severely undermined legitimate uses of the platform by students who used it to share educational materials and organize study groups. Moreover, the opaqueness around the section 69A order is itself hard to reconcile with the transparency requirements set out in Anuradha Bhasin. 

Thus, while the objectives of preventing exam fraud may be legitimate, the necessity and proportionality of single platform-wide bans remain highly suspect under Indian constitutional law.

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Policy Recommendations and the Path Forward

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The Telegram controversy points to the need for a better balancing act in platform governance in India. Firstly, instead of blanket platform shutdowns, action should target specific channels, bots, or URLs, as may be the case. Secondly, any attempt to dictate changes to features, such as disabling message editing, should be based on specific statutory provisions, not an expansive reading of Section 69A. Furthermore, there is a dire need for increased transparency; blocking orders must state the justification for the order, what is being blocked, and for how long, as far as possible. In the long run, stricter cross-border cooperation via streamlined MLATs, or through the appointment of local legal representatives by foreign platforms, would facilitate easier enforcement. Ultimately, all major blocking decisions must be accompanied by proportionality assessments. Lastly, India must resist pressure to provide access to encryption backdoors; while this might ease investigative burdens, doing so would severely jeopardise the cybersecurity of India, its businesses, and citizens.

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Conclusion

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The Telegram ban is an example of the tricky equilibrium between protection of public interest and protection of digital liberties in our hyper-connected world. While the intent to counter exam fraud is justifiable, a blanket ban on any platform has much broader implications on questions of necessity, proportionality and transparency. India has a well-developed constitutional and legal framework to deal with this issue already, and the challenge will be to see if those powers are used appropriately.

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References

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Cases:

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• Shreya Singhal v. Union of India (2015) 5 SCC 1 — Supreme Court of India
• Justice K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India (2017) 10 SCC 1 — Supreme Court of India (Nine-Judge Bench)
• Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India (2020) 3 SCC 637 — Supreme Court of India
• Podchasov v. Russia, European Court of Human Rights (Application No. 33696/19, February 2024)
• Apple Inc. v. United States (In re Search of an Apple iPhone, C.D. Cal. 2016)
• Telegram Messenger Inc. v. Union of India & Anr., Delhi High Court (June 2026) — Sub judice

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Legislation & Rules:

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• Information Technology Act, 2000 (India) — Sections 69A, 79
• IT (Procedure and Safeguards for Blocking Access to Information by Public) Rules, 2009
• IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021
• Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (India) & DPDP Rules, 2025
• EU Digital Services Act, 2022 (Regulation 2022/2065)
• EU Digital Markets Act, 2022 (Regulation 2022/1925)
• EU Child Sexual Abuse Regulation (CSAR) Proposal — In Trilogue, June 2026
• UK Investigatory Powers Act, 2016

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Policy Sources:

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• Internet Freedom Foundation, Statement on Telegram Block, 16 June 2026
•  European Commission, ProtectEU Security Strategy, June 2025
•  MeitY Section 69A Blocking Order re: Telegram (June 2026)
•  NTA Press Release on NEET-UG 2026 Re-Examination, 16 June 2026

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Executive Summary:

The claim of a video of  US President Joe Biden dozing off during a television interview is digitally manipulated . The original video is from a 2011 incident involving actor and singer Harry Belafonte. He seems to fall asleep during a live satellite interview with KBAK – KBFX - Eyewitness News. Upon thorough analysis of keyframes from the viral video, it reveals that US President Joe Biden’s image was altered in Harry Belafonte's video. This confirms that the viral video is manipulated and does not show an actual event involving President Biden.

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Claims:

A video shows US President Joe Biden dozing off during a television interview while the anchor tries to wake him up.

Fact Check:

Upon receiving the posts, we watched the video then divided the video into keyframes using the inVid tool, and reverse-searched one of the frames from the video.

We found another video uploaded on Oct 18, 2011 by the official channel of KBAK - KBFX - Eye Witness News. The title of the video reads, “Official Station Video: Is Harry Belafonte asleep during live TV interview?”  

The video looks similar to the recent viral one, the TV anchor could be heard saying the same thing as in the viral video. Taking a cue from this we also did some keyword searches to find any credible sources. We found a news article posted by Yahoo Entertainment of the same video uploaded by KBAK - KBFX - Eyewitness News.

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Upon thorough investigation from reverse image search and keyword search reveals that the recent viral video of US  President Joe Biden dozing off during a TV interview is digitally altered to misrepresent the context. The original video dated back to 2011, where American Singer and actor Harry Belafonte was the actual person in the TV interview but not US  President Joe Biden.

Hence, the claim made in the viral video is false and misleading.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the viral video claiming to show US President Joe Biden dozing off during a television interview is digitally manipulated and inauthentic. The video is originally from a 2011 incident involving American singer and actor Harry Belafonte. It has been altered to falsely show US President Joe Biden. It is a reminder to verify the authenticity of online content before accepting or sharing it as truth.

• Claim:  A viral video shows in a television interview US President Joe Biden dozing off  while the anchor tries to wake him up.
• Claimed on: X (Formerly known as Twitter)
• Fact Check: Fake & Misleading

BharOS’s successful testing grabbed massive online attention after Ashwini Vaishnaw, Minister of Communications and Electronics & IT, and Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan unveiled the new mobile operating system. On Data Privacy Day, January 28, it’s appropriate to discuss the safety factors.

The OS is developed by JandKops, which has been incubated by IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation. It is claimed that BharOS will ensure the prevention of the “execution of any malware” and “execution of any malicious application”.

Even though it is called a Made in India OS, there are many people who disagree with this. It is because the OS is based on an AOSP (Android Open Source Project). It includes similar methodologies, functionalities, and basics used in Google Android.

Global safety factor

Security and data safety has been worldwide issue. A few years ago, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai also testified in front of US Congress while facing questions related to privacy, data collection, and location tracking.

While experts say that Android’s app ecosystem is a privacy and security disaster, a study that examined 82,501 apps pre-installed on 1,742 Android smartphones sold by 214 vendors concluded that users are woefully unaware of the significant security and privacy risks posed by pre-installed applications.

Even Apple, which takes cybersafety issues as a top priority, sometimes finds itself in a vulnerable situation. For example, last year Apple users were advised to update their devices to protect against a pair of security flaws that could allow attackers to take complete control.

It was said that one of the software flaws affected the kernel, the deepest layer of the OS shared by all Apple devices, while the other had an impact on WebKit, the technology that powers the Safari web browser.

Security researchers, including NordVPN, said that Apple’s closed development OS makes it more difficult for hackers to develop exploits, while Android raises the threat level since anyone can see its source code to develop exploits.

BharOS is not like iOS but it is kind of similar to Android and based on AOSP. So the question is, how safe would this OS be?

‘Security blanket’

Sandip Kumar Panda, Co-founder and CEO of InstaSafe, told News18: “BharOS acts as a security blanket for devices. The framework is designed in a manner that it prevents the execution of any malicious app and verifies each app on the devices before making it live on the BharOS platform.”

There are no apps without any vulnerabilities, he said. “As the app development progresses, vulnerabilities get introduced either in the form of insecure coding practices or third-party software vulnerabilities integrated with the platform. Since several Android vulnerabilities were discovered over the years, all those bugs would have been fixed now and updates would already have been for AOSP, which will be much more mature now,” he added.

Vineet Kumar, Founder and President of CyberPeace Foundation, believes that “the use of AOSP as the foundation for BharOS is a positive step” as it is a robust platform.

But according to him, it is important to note that no OS can be completely immune to all forms of cyber threats. “The key to staying safe online is to stay vigilant, use security software, keep your software updated, and be mindful of the apps you install and the websites you visit,” he said,

Furthermore, the expert stated that it is possible to make an OS more secure by implementing a variety of security features and technologies such as sandboxing, whitelisting, and application control, as well as rigorous testing and code review processes.

Kumar said: “It would be important for an independent, reputable security firm to evaluate BharOS and test its security features before it can be stated with certainty that it is more secure than other OSs.”

It is difficult to say whether the BharOS will be free of cybersecurity issues without more information about the specific features and security measures that have been implemented, he noted while adding that this OS has to go through a rigorous testing and certification process.

“It will be important to see how it measures up against established security standards and how well it can withstand real-world attacks,” the expert stated.

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Reference Link : https://www.news18.com/amp/news/tech/data-privacy-day-how-safe-is-bharos-what-do-cybersecurity-experts-say-you-are-about-to-find-out-6932521.html