Report details massive EU misinformation campaign to promote Modi govt’s interests; names ANI as a key player

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Kajal Agrawal

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Report details massive EU misinformation campaign to promote Modi govt’s interests; names ANI as a key player ^Featured

Super User 10 December 2020

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According to EU DisinfoLab, its open-source investigation shows that the operation to reinforce pro-Indian and anti-Pakistan feelings began in 2005 and is still ongoing.

An NGO based in Brussels, the EU DisinfoLab, has published a report detailing one of the largest ever disinformation campaigns in Europe, organised by Indian stakeholders, to further the interests of the Indian government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The report, titled ‘Indian Chronicles’, says that this disinformation campaign was carried out by Asian News International (ANI), India’s largest video news agency, and a shadowy business conglomerate called the Srivastava group which organised a visit for far-right members of the European Parliament to Kashmir last year.

The year-long investigation by the EU DisinfoLab was built upon and published exclusively by news organisations such as Les Jours in France, which quoted a misinformation expert who described this campaign as “a network … whose scope and impact are comparable to the operation of Russian interference during the campaign in the United States in 2016.”

According to the report posted on the website of EU DisinfoLab, its open-source investigation shows that the operation led by the Srivastava Group and amplified by ANI began in 2005 and is still ongoing at this date. “The operation’s mission is to discredit nations in conflict with India in Asia, in particular Pakistan but also China to a lesser extent.” Its long-term objective is:

In India, to reinforce pro-Indian and anti-Pakistan (and anti-Chinese) feelings.

o Internationally, to consolidate the power and improve the perception of India, to damage the reputation of other countries and ultimately benefit from more support from international institutions such as the EU and the UN.

To do so, the operation consists of:

The support to minority and human rights NGOs and think-tanks.
The use of Members of the European Parliament to create a mirage of institutional support from European institutions to these minority groups, in favour of Indian interests and against Pakistan (and China).

An active presence in Geneva and the United Nations’ Human Rights Council through:
Side-events and demonstrations in support of minority rights;

o Impersonation of extinguished UN-accredited NGOs or use speaking slots reserved to various NGOs whose original missions seem totally unrelated.

The creation of fake media in Brussels, Geneva and across the world and/or the repackaging and dissemination via ANI and obscure local media networks – at least in 97 countries – to multiply the repetition of online negative content about countries in conflict with India, in particular Pakistan.

“Our investigation led to the finding of 10 UN-accredited NGOs directly controlled by the Srivastava Group, which our full report introduces at length. Their common trait? The fact that they all rose from the ashes of real NGOs. Indian Chronicles effectively benefited from the track record of these organisations while pursuing their own agenda: discrediting Pakistan and promoting Indian interests at UN conferences and hearings,” the report says.

“The organisations created by the Srivastava Group in Brussels organised trips for Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to Kashmir, Bangladesh and the Maldives. Some of these trips led to much institutional controversy, as the delegations of MEPs were often presented as official EU delegations when they were in fact not travelling on behalf of the Parliament,” it added.

“Essentially, our investigation details how the activities of a fake zombie-NGO and that of a fake specialised media can be repackaged, distorted and amplified by malicious actors to influence or disinform globally, using loopholes in international institutions and online search engines,” the report says.

The Les Jours report suggested that the entire operation could be linked to Indian intelligence services.

The latest DisinfoLab report builds upon a 2019 report that had exposed EP Today’s workings. The DisinfoLab’s 2020 report states that EP Today has been reconstituted into a new publication called EU Chronicle.

A sizable portion of the 2020 DisinfoLab report discusses how ANI misrepresents reports from EU Chronicle and other Srivastava group linked organisations to convince an Indian audience that Modi’s actions have support in Europe.

According to the count of DisinfoLab investigators, ANI has already copied content published by EU Chronicle 13 times in just six months.

“ANI remains the only press agency to extensively cover the activities of dubious NGOs in Geneva,” the DisinfoLab report says, describing the agency’s work as “distortion.”

“We are alarmed to see the continuation of Indian Chronicles which – despite our first report and wide press coverage – has pursued its 15-year long operation and even recently launched EU Chronicle, a fake EU outlet. This should serve as a call to action for decision-makers to put in place a relevant framework to sanction actors abusing our international institutions. It is possible that the absence of messages from the institutions affected by Indian Chronicles provided the space and opportunity for the operation to reinvent itself and to continue doing “more of the same”, it says.