#FactCheck: Debunking the Edited Image Claim of PM Modi with Hafiz Saeed

Introduction

Criminal justice in India is majorly governed by three laws which are – Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and Indian Evidence Act. The centre, on 11th August 2023’ Friday, proposes a new bill in parliament Friday, which is replacing the country’s major criminal laws, i.e. Indian Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and Indian Evidence Act.

The following three bills are being proposed to replace major criminal laws in the country:

• The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, 2023 to replace Indian Penal Code 1860.
• The Bharatiya Nagrik Suraksha Sanhita Bill, 2023, to replace The Code Of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
• The Bharatiya Sakshya Bill, 2023, to replace The Indian Evidence Act 1872.

Cyber law-oriented view of the new shift in criminal lawNotable changes:Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, 2023  Indian Penal Code 1860.

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‍Way ahead for digitalisation

‍The new laws aim to enhance the utilisation of digital services in court systems, it facilitates online registration of FIR, Online filing of the charge sheet,  serving summons in electronic mode, trial and proceedings in electronic mode etc.  The new bills also allow the virtual appearance of witnesses, accused, experts, and victims in some instances. This shift will lead to the adoption of technology in courts and all courts to be computerised in the upcoming time.

‍Enhanced recognition of electronic records

‍With the change in lifestyle in terms of the digital sphere, significance is given to recognising electronic records as equal to paper records.

‍Conclusion

‍The criminal laws of the country play a significant role in establishing law & order and providing justice. The criminal laws of India were the old laws existing under British rule. There have been several amendments to criminal laws to deal with the growing crimes and new aspects. However, there was a need for well-established criminal laws which are in accordance with the present era. The step of the legislature by centralising all criminal laws in their new form and introducing three bills is a good approach which will ultimately strengthen the criminal justice system in India, and it will also facilitate the use of technology in the court system.

Introduction

In today's digital economy, data is not only a business asset but also the fuel for innovation, decision-making, and consumer trust. However, the digitisation of services has made personal or sensitive data a top target for cybercriminals. The stakes are high: a data breach can cost millions of fines, cause damage to reputation and devastate the confidence of consumers. Therefore, regulatory compliance and data protection have become a strategic imperative.

From the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the EU to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act of India, various sector-specific regulations like HIPAA for healthcare in the US, companies are now subject to a web of data protection and compliance laws. The challenge is to balance compliance efforts with strong security, a balance that demands both policy restraint and technical resilience. This blog examines pivotal pillars, shifting trends and actionable best practices for dominating data protection and compliance in 2025 and beyond.

Why Data Protection and Compliance Matter More Than Ever

Data protection isn't just about keeping fines at bay, it's about preserving the relationship with customers, partners and regulators. A 2024 IBM report says the average data-breach cost has now exceeded USD 4.5 million, with regulatory fines constituting a large portion of the cost. In addition to economics, breaches tend to result in intellectual property loss, customer loss and long-term brand attenuation. Compliance ensures organisations remain within certain legislative necessities for collecting, holding, transferring and setting of personal and sensitive information. Failure to conformity can lead to serious penalties: under GDPR, fines could be up to 4% of the company's annual turnover or €20 million, whichever is higher. In regulated sectors like banking and healthcare, compliance breaches can also lead to the suspension of licenses.

Important Regulatory Frameworks Informing 2025

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1. GDPR and Its Global Ripple Effect

GDPR was enacted in 2018 and continues to have a ripple effect on privacy legislation worldwide. Its tenets of lawfulness, transparency, data minimisation and purpose limitation have been replicated in many jurisdictions such as Brazil's LGPD and South Korea's PIPA.

2. India's DPDP Act

The DPDP Act, 2023, gives high importance to consent-based processing of data, transparent notice rules and fiduciary responsibilities for data. With a penalty for default of up to INR 250 crore, it's amongst the most impactful laws for digital personal data protection.

3. Sectoral Regulations

• HIPAA for healthcare information in the US.
• PCI DSS for payment card security.
• DORA (Digital Operational Resilience Act) in the EU for financial organisations.
• These industry-specific models generate overlapping compliance responsibilities, making cross-enterprise compliance programs vital.

Key Pillars of a Sound Data Protection & Compliance Program

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1. Data Governance and Classification

Having insight into what data you have to store, where it is stored and who can have access to it is the keystone of compliance. Organisations need to have data classification policies in place to group information based on sensitivity and impose more rigorous controls on sensitive data.

2. Security Controls and Privacy by Design

Strong technical defences, encryption, multi-factor authentication, and intrusion detection are the initial defences. Privacy by design integrated in product development guarantees compliance is thought through from the initial stage, not added on afterwards.

3. Consent and Transparency

Contemporary data legislation highlights informed consent. This entails simple, non-technical privacy notices, detailed opt-in choices, and straightforward withdrawal options. Transparency produces trust and lessens legal danger.

4. Incident Response and Breach Notification

Most laws demand timely breach notifications, and GDPR insists on reporting within 72 hours. Having a documented incident response plan maintains legal deadlines and reduces harm.

5. Employee Training and Awareness

Human mistake is the top source of data breaches. Ongoing training in prevention of phishing, password management, basic cyber hygiene and compliance requirements is crucial.

Upcoming Trends in 2025

1.  AI-Powered Compliance Monitoring

Organisations are embracing AI-powered solutions to systematically monitor data flows, identify policy breaches and auto-create compliance reports. The solutions assist in closing the loop between IT security teams and compliance officers.

2. Cross-Border Data Transfer Mechanisms

With increasingly severe regulations, companies are spending more on secure cross-border data transfer frameworks like Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and Binding Corporate Rules (BCRs).

3. Privacy-Enhancing Technologies (PETs)

Methods such as homomorphic encryption and differential privacy are picking up steam, enabling organisations to sift through datasets without revealing sensitive personal data.

4. ESG and Data Ethics

Data handling is increasingly becoming a part of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reporting. Ethical utilisation of customer data, not just compliance, has become a reputational differentiator.

Challenges in Implementation

Despite having transparent frameworks, data protection plans encounter challenges like jurisdictions having competing needs, and global compliance is becoming expensive. The emerging technologies, such as generative AI, often bring privacy threats that haven’t been fully covered by legislation. Small and micro enterprises have neither the budget nor the skills to implement enterprise-level compliance programs. Qualifying these challenges often needs a risk-based strategy, allocations of resources to top areas of impact and automating the compliance chores wherever possible.

Best Practices for 2025 and Beyond

In 2025, regulatory compliance and data protection are no longer a precaution or a response to a breach but are strategic drivers of resilience and trust. As regulatory analysis rises, cyber threats evolve, and consumer expectations grow, administrations need to integrate compliance into the very fabric of their actions. By bringing governance and technology together, organisations can break free from a "checklist" mentality and instead adopt a proactive and risk-sensitive approach. Eventually, data protection is not just about not getting in trouble; it's about developing a kind that succeeds in the digital era.

References

1. GDPR – Official EU Regulation Page: https://gdpr.eu 
2. India’s DPDP Act Overview – MeitY: https://www.meity.gov.in/data-protection-framework 
3. HIPAA – US Department of Health & Human Services: https://www.hhs.gov/hipaa 
4. PCI DSS Standards: https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org 
5. IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2024: https://www.ibm.com/reports/data-breach 
6. OECD – Privacy Guidelines: https://www.oecd.org/sti/privacy-guidelines 

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Introduction

Imagine spending two years , 730 days of early mornings, missed social events, and relentless mock tests  preparing for a single examination. Now imagine that on the morning of that exam, your phone buzzes with a forwarded video claiming the question paper has already leaked. Your heart sinks. You do not know whether to trust it or ignore it. You have about forty minutes before you must enter the hall. This was the reality for a section of the 22 lakh students who sat for the NEET UG 2026 re-examination on June 21, 2026, when a fabricated video alleging a paper leak on Telegram began circulating across WhatsApp groups and X within hours of the exam commencing. The National Testing Agency (NTA) swiftly and categorically denied the claims, activated the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), and appealed to the public not to amplify unverified content. The examination concluded without incident. But the episode laid bare a challenge that no security perimeter or surveillance camera can fully address: the weaponisation of misinformation against India's high-stakes examination ecosystem.

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The Anatomy of Examination Misinformation

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Why Examinations Are a Prime Target

India's national examinations are uniquely fertile ground for misinformation. With over 22 lakh candidates registered for NEET UG 2026 alone, the audience is vast, anxious, and hungry for any update  verified or otherwise. Research by MIT has found that false stories spread six times faster than accurate ones on social media, and are seventy percent more likely to be reshared. In India, where over 535 million people use WhatsApp and studies show that most users tend to trust messages forwarded by family and friends, the conditions for viral misinformation are near-ideal. According to a 2020 Microsoft survey, 52 percent of Indian respondents encountered misinformation at least once a day, the highest rate globally.

What makes examination-related misinformation especially dangerous is its timing. Fabricated content is almost always released on examination day itself, the precise moment when candidates are most emotionally vulnerable, official channels are stretched thin, and the window for effective rebuttal is narrowest. The NEET UG 2026 fake video, circulated on Telegram and amplified across closed WhatsApp groups, fits this pattern precisely. It was engineered not to inform, but to destabilise.

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A History That Sharpens the Anxiety

This misinformation did not emerge in a vacuum. The shadow of the 2024 NEET UG controversy  in which the Supreme Court of India confirmed that at least 155 students had directly benefited from a genuine paper leak, and which triggered nationwide protests, CBI investigations, and a parliamentary uproar — still looms large. Students and parents conditioned by that experience are primed to believe the worst, even when claims are entirely false. In 2026, that residual anxiety became the very vulnerability that bad actors sought to exploit. The government's response which included temporarily restricting access to Telegram in the lead-up to the re-examination  underscored just how seriously the threat of examination misinformation is now being taken at the highest levels.

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The NTA's Response: Why It Matters

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1. Speed and Transparency as Governance Tools: In crisis communication, the first credible voice usually wins. The NTA's near-immediate public denial posted on official social media handles and amplified by the Press Information Bureau's PIB Fact Check unit was a meaningful departure from the delayed, defensive responses that characterised earlier examination controversies. By directly labelling the video "FAKE" in capital letters, describing its creation as "a serious offence," and simultaneously appealing to students to rely only on official sources at neet.nta.nic.in, the NTA left little room for the false narrative to consolidate. NTA Director General Abhishek Singh went further, publicly stating that the agency was "100 per cent confident" in the integrity of the process and that no complaints of a genuine paper leak had been received. This matters beyond crisis management. Public trust in examination systems is not rebuilt through official statements alone , it is rebuilt through the consistent, transparent exercise of institutional authority. A swift, fact-based rebuttal, deployed before rumour hardens into public belief, is as much a governance act as it is a communications strategy.

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2. Cybercrime Coordination as a Structural Shift: Perhaps the most significant development in the NTA's response was its coordination with I4C and law enforcement agencies to trace the origin of the fabricated video. This signals a structural evolution: examination misinformation is no longer being treated as an administrative inconvenience but as cybercrime with legal consequences under the Information Technology Act, 2000. The announcement that legal action would follow also carries a deterrent message to potential future actors — that the machinery of cybercrime enforcement will be activated, and that fabricating content to mislead examination candidates is a prosecutable offence.

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The Human and Institutional Cost

The costs of examination misinformation are neither abstract nor trivial. Mental health experts have warned that controversies surrounding national-level examinations can have serious long-term psychological consequences for aspirants. Dr. Mustafa Nadeem Kirmani of Amity University has noted that such crises increase the risk of students taking "extreme steps like suicide attempts, anger toward the system, and hopelessness," and can, in the long run, lead to clinical depression. In the wake of the 2026 paper leak controversy, multiple reports of student deaths by suicide were linked to the compounded pressures of exam cancellation and uncertainty a grim reminder of the real human stakes behind governance failures in this domain. For institutions, every viral misinformation episode generates an avoidable administrative crisis. Helplines are overwhelmed, examination centre staff face panicked queries, and senior officials are pulled into damage control rather than exam administration. The credibility of clarifications issued under pressure is itself questioned by a public already primed for suspicion. This administrative burden, multiplied across 5,440 examination centres in India and 14 abroad, represents a significant and entirely unnecessary cost.

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Building a Resilient Ecosystem: What Needs to Change

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1. Proactive Communication and Platform Coordination: Institutional credibility is built before a crisis, not during one. Examination bodies must invest in sustained pre-examination communication that educates candidates and parents about the existence of misinformation campaigns and tells them exactly where to look for verified updates. This means highly visible, verified social media presences with large followings, real-time update protocols, and formal escalation channels with platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram, X, and YouTube to enable rapid takedown of false examination-related content. The IT Amendment Rules of 2023, which require significant social media intermediaries to act on government-flagged content, provide a legal basis for such coordination  but the operational infrastructure to activate it at speed must be built in advance, not improvised on the day.

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2. Fact-Checking Partnerships and Digital Literacy: Independent organisations such as BOOM Live, Alt News, and Vishvas News have proven their capacity to rapidly debunk examination misinformation. Formalising their role through a structured public-private partnership  where examination authorities share real-time verified information with empanelled fact-checkers  could close the window during which false content circulates unchallenged. Equally critical is investment in digital media literacy among students and parents. A 2018 survey found that nearly 45 percent of Indian respondents were unaware of any fact-checking organisations. Addressing this gap through school curricula, coaching networks, and the Ministry of Education's DIKSHA platform  is a preventive investment far less costly than repeated crisis management.

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Conclusion

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The NTA's handling of the NEET UG 2026 fake video was, by recent standards, exemplary. It was fast, transparent, authoritative, and backed by the activation of cybercrime enforcement. But a single well-managed episode does not constitute a resilient system. India runs some of the world's largest entrance examinations, and the stakes medical seats, livelihoods, and the aspirations of crores of young people are too high for crisis response alone to suffice. Combating examination misinformation requires permanent structural investment: dedicated rapid-response cells within examination bodies, formalised fact-checking pipelines, proactive platform coordination, and a sustained public education effort around digital verification. Protecting the integrity of India's examination ecosystem is not merely an administrative responsibility. It is a commitment to the millions of students who give everything they have to compete fairly and who deserve a system that protects them not only from cheating, but from the fear of it.

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References

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1. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/131900261.cms
2. https://www.india.com/education/neet-ug-2026-re-exam-paper-leak-claim-goes-viral-nta-says-video-is-fake-and-false-fabricated-examination-conducted-successfully-8453620/
3. https://www.republicworld.com/education/neet-ug-re-exam-nta-says-paper-leak-video-fake-test-conducted-successfully-2026-06-22-129346
4. https://thefederal.com/category/education/neet-re-exam-paper-leak-admission-system-crisis-247410
5. https://www.outlookindia.com/healthcare-spotlight/beyond-the-paper-leak-emotional-trauma-among-neet-aspirants-raises-concern
6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_NEET_controversy
7. https://kaval.chat/blog/misinformation-scam-statistics-india-2026/
8. https://www.ijert.org/the-virality-gap-political-misinformation-and-the-information-crisis-in-india-s-digital-democracy-ijertv15is050041
9. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap9559 https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/digital-skills/digital-civility
10. https://www.meity.gov.in/content/information-technology-intermediary-guidelines-and-digital-media-ethics-code-amendment
11. https://www.indiacode.nic.in/handle/123456789/1999 
12. https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx 
13. https://www.careerindia.com/news/addressing-the-mental-health-crisis-sparked-by-net-and-neet-paper-leaked-in-india-041963.html
14. https://thediplomat.com/2025/03/indias-growing-misinformation-crisis-a-threat-to-democracy/

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