StormOfTruth
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- Dec 12, 2023
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Covert Indian operation seeks to discredit Modi’s critics in the U.S.
An article titled “Covert Indian operation seeks to discredit Modi’s critics in the U.S.” was published in Washington Post which outlines a disinformation campaign with involvement of Indian RAW agency that is used to malign critics of Indian Prime Minister Narendar Modi.
Main points:
An article titled “Covert Indian operation seeks to discredit Modi’s critics in the U.S.” was published in Washington Post which outlines a disinformation campaign with involvement of Indian RAW agency that is used to malign critics of Indian Prime Minister Narendar Modi.
Main points:
- Since 2020, an opaque organization calling itself the Disinfo Lab has published lengthy dossiers and social media posts claiming to reveal the personal relationships and funding sources behind U.S.-based critics of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- The Disinfo Lab has combined fact-based research with unsubstantiated claims to paint U.S. government figures, researchers, humanitarian groups and Indian American rights activists as part of a conspiracy, purportedly led by global Islamic groups and billionaire George Soros, to undermine India.
- In reality, however, the Disinfo Lab was set up and is run by an Indian intelligence officer to research and discredit foreign critics of the Modi government, according to three people who worked in the organization or were familiar with its establishment.
- The Disinfo Lab, which at one point consisted of about a dozen private contractors working out of a four-story whitewashed building in New Delhi, was created in mid-2020 by Lt. Col. Dibya Satpathy, now 39, an intelligence officer who has worked to shape international perceptions of India.
- Satpathy was initially commissioned as an infantry officer and served in the army’s intelligence and public information units. Satpathy was later detailed to his current posting with India’s external intelligence agency, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW).
- Over the years, Satpathy has introduced himself to Western journalists and commentators under fake identities — including his preferred alias, Shakti, meaning “power” in Hindi — and sought favorable coverage of India or critical coverage of its adversaries, Pakistan and China.
- Over the past five years, social media researchers have uncovered large Indian online networks that promote the BJP’s foreign policy positions to domestic and foreign audiences. Coordinated social media accounts have been found to play a role, for instance, in spreading identical posts in support of Russia, an important supplier of weapons and energy to India, and of Israel, an increasingly close partner.
- Until at least 2021, the Disinfo Lab shared its office with a separate team headed by a career RAW intelligence officer who specialized in China and carried out information operations related to Tibet. The Disinfo Lab itself was headed by Satpathy, whose work has focused mostly on countering Pakistan and the unrest it allegedly foments in the Indian border state of Punjab and IIOJK.
- Ajai Shukla, a retired Indian Army colonel and a military affairs journalist, said that former prime ministers such as Indira Gandhi also painted her critics as national security threats. But the Modi government has gone further, sometimes blurring the line between its political foes and those who should be targeted by the security apparatus.
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