Sukhoranjan Dasgupta
Netranews is the new role model for fake news and disruptive activism which manages to stay in news by sticking to a one-point formula: lies, lies, more lies and all but truth peddled consistently with a single motto -- to create panic and confusion.
The formula has managed to keep Netranews stay in news, albeit for all the wrong reasons.
Sample some of its preposterous lies to realise how often they have gone wrong but how consistently they have stuck to lying --
* Netranews predicted the death of millions when Covid first hit Bangladesh -- it is now obviously unhappy that the death toll has been in thousands, bad enough but nowhere near the Netranews projections.
* Bangladesh has been singled out for UN Action because of army chief Aziz Ahmed's acts and will soon face a drastic reduction in UN peacekeeping quotas -- on the contrary, the quota has risen and the ghost of penal action has not materialised.
* It predicted Indian vaccines will never arrive , again they were proved wrong.
All these fake news is aimed at creating a popular upsurge a la Arab Spring -- but it all failed.
Bangladesh media exposed Netranews for what it was worth -- a pseudo-media outlet funded by National Endowment for Democracy (NED) whose real agenda is regime change in target countries and whose funds allegedly come out of US intelligence budget.
It is better Western countries do not try decimating the secular forces
of Bengali nationalism to back soft Islamists like Khalil who are increasingly
unabashed in their support for radical Islamists like Hefazat
But now Netranews is seeking public subscriptions for Youtube channel possibly because it faces fund cuts from NED -- intelligence assets are usually dumped when they loose value following exposure.
After my recent expose of Netranews and NED, aided by Jeff Richelson's magnum opus US Intelligence Community, I hear from my American sources that they are unhappy with Khalil for blowing his trumpet on funding.
The facade of investigative journalism is actually a template for promoting fake news to create public disaffection to bring about regime change not through polls but through riots, public disorder and chaos.
What amazes me is how Western backers of Netranews support a group which shamelessly promotes Hefazat type Islamist radicals by projecting their agitation as peaceful! The Islamists who swear to bring down the West, who seek to attack French embassy for Macron's anti-radical crackdown after the beheadings, who burn down Music Academies are, in Tasneem Khalil's opinion, better than 'state-sponsored terror’ -- Netra's adage for the tough counter-terrorism campaign that has won even the FBI's admiration.
And yet Khalil receives NED funding using the good offices of his white guru David Bergman.
US was allegedly involved in creating Taliban. See Afghanistan. It is alleged that US backed Pakistan and its politics to radicalise the Afghan resistance. The Taliban swept to power with Pakistan's backing. Then post 9/11, the Americans came hunting the same Taliban for sheltering and supporting Al Qaida. Now the US withdrawal has betrayed the Afghans who stood up to Taliban and drove them out.
It is better Western countries do not try decimating the secular forces of Bengali nationalism to back soft Islamists like Khalil who are increasingly unabashed in their support for radical Islamists like Hefazat.
Sukharanjan Dasgupta, a veteran journalist worked for Ananda Bazar Patrika and ‘Blitz’ until he retired. He is author of ‘Midnight Massacre” and several biographies on top Indian leaders like Manmohan Singh . His biography on Mamata Banerjee is now being published