Between 9 pm last night and noon today, the I and B ministry first put out a rather ill-conceived order to penalise journalists for fake news, faced immediate and sustained blowback from the media, and withdrew it just as abruptly, after the Prime Minister asked for it to be scrapped. Does it mean Indian media is resistant to criticism? No, it doesn't. The Indian media has a fake news problem, but we need to deal with it, in-house, with no interference from the government. But there is a bigger problem confronting our democracy, one that has only been underlined by the events of the past 24 hours: that this government, and the ruling party has a fake news problem.
