#FactCheck - Viral Video Falsely Claims Rajnath Singh Compared RSS With Afghan Taliban

Executive Summary:

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A viral video depicting a powerful tsunami wave destroying coastal infrastructure is being falsely associated with the recent tsunami warning in Japan following an earthquake in Russia. Fact-checking through reverse image search reveals that the footage is from a 2017 tsunami in Greenland, triggered by a massive landslide in the Karrat Fjord.

Claim:

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A viral video circulating on social media shows a massive tsunami wave crashing into the coastline, destroying boats and surrounding infrastructure. The footage is being falsely linked to the recent tsunami warning issued in Japan following an earthquake in Russia. However, initial verification suggests that the video is unrelated to the current event and may be from a previous incident.

Fact Check:

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The video, which shows water forcefully inundating a coastal area, is neither recent nor related to the current tsunami event in Japan. A reverse image search conducted using keyframes extracted from the viral footage confirms that it is being misrepresented. The video actually originates from a tsunami that struck Greenland in 2017. The original footage is available on YouTube and has no connection to the recent earthquake-induced tsunami warning in Japan

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The American Geophysical Union (AGU) confirmed in a blog post on June 19, 2017, that the deadly Greenland tsunami on June 17, 2017, was caused by a massive landslide. Millions of cubic meters of rock were dumped into the Karrat Fjord by the landslide, creating a wave that was more than 90 meters high and destroying the village of Nuugaatsiaq. A similar news article from The Guardian can be found. 

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Conclusion:

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Videos purporting to depict the effects of a recent tsunami  in Japan are deceptive and repurposed from unrelated incidents. Users of social media are urged to confirm the legitimacy of such content before sharing it, particularly during natural disasters when false information can exacerbate public anxiety and confusion.

• Claim: Recent natural disasters in Russia are being censored
• Claimed On: Social Media
• Fact Check: False and Misleading

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For years, Malaysia governed artificial intelligence the way most countries did before they had to, with guidelines nobody could be fined for ignoring. The National Guidelines on AI Governance and Ethics, published by Malaysia's Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation back in September 2024, told developers and deployers what "responsible AI" should look like. It just never made anyone legally responsible for anything.

Malaysia is now attempting to change that. On 10 July 2026, the National AI Office (NAIO), operating under the Ministry of Digital, released a Public Consultation Paper for what would become Malaysia's first horizontal AI statute: a single law covering AI across every sector, rather than a patchwork of guidelines, data protection rules, and whatever a particular regulator happens to think about algorithms this year. Written submissions closed on 31 July 2026, and the government has said it wants the Bill tabled and completed before the year is out. That is an aggressive timeline for a law this broad, and it tells you something about how urgently Putrajaya wants this on the books.

Why "horizontal" matters here

Most of the world's AI rules so far have been vertical. A banking regulator handles AI in banking, a health authority handles AI in diagnostics, and everything in between is grey space. Malaysia's own consultation paper is refreshingly candid about the problem this creates: it warns of "differing standards and approaches" building up across sectors, and notes that existing tools only really respond after something has already gone wrong.

The Bill tries to fix that by sitting above the sector specific rules rather than replacing them. It rests on three pillars. 

1. First, a Central AI Authority, which would still lean on existing regulators (think Bank Negara Malaysia for financial services or the Securities Commission for capital markets) through what the paper calls "Sectoral Leads." 
2. Second, a set of baseline principles written into law rather than left as suggestions: human dignity, transparency and explainability, accountability, safety and security, and data governance. 
3. Third, a structure that scales obligations to how dangerous a given AI system actually is, instead of regulating a spam filter and a hospital triage algorithm with the same rulebook.

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The mechanics: three tiers, two roles, one authority

The risk framework itself splits into three tiers: Tier 1 for unacceptable risk, Tier 2 for high risk, and Tier 3 for low risk, with obligations scaling up as the potential for harm does. Obligations fall on two kinds of actors: Developers, who materially shape what a system can do, and Deployers, who actually run it in the real world. A single company can be both. This split deliberately echoes the controller and processor distinction from Malaysia's Personal Data Protection Act, though not perfectly, a point several legal commentators have already flagged as a source of future confusion, since a Deployer processing personal data will usually be a controller under the PDPA, while a Developer offering a hosted model might only be a processor.

The Central AI Authority itself is proposed to run three functions: an AI Safety function that maintains the risk framework and oversees testing and incident reporting; an Investigation and Enforcement function with power to demand fact finding and issue directions after incidents; and an AI Enablement function that produces guidance, templates, training, and runs the AI Sandbox, a controlled testing environment meant to let companies experiment before the full weight of compliance lands on them. For smaller businesses without in house compliance teams, that enablement mandate may end up mattering more day to day than the enforcement powers do.

Two more features round out the design. An incident reporting mechanism would require Developers and Deployers to flag not just failures but near misses and unexpected effects, with the public also able to lodge complaints directly. And the Bill's territorial reach is broad by design: it would apply to any AI system designed, developed, or used in Malaysia, regardless of where the underlying infrastructure sits, carving out exemptions only for personal use and national security matters.

How this stacks up against the EU AI Act

Malaysia's drafters have clearly been reading Brussels' homework, and it shows in the structure: a tiered risk model, a central authority, mandatory obligations tied to risk level. But the resemblance is more skeletal than skin deep once you look at the details.

The EU AI Act is a fully codified regulation running to hundreds of pages, with named prohibited practices spelled out in an annex, specific high risk categories listed by sector, and detailed conformity assessment procedures before a system ever reaches the market. Malaysia's Bill, at consultation stage, is still working from principles and a harm list rather than an exhaustive catalogue of prohibited or high risk use cases, closer in spirit to a framework law that leaves the granular detail to subsidiary guidelines and Sectoral Leads. That's partly a function of timeline: the EU spent roughly three years negotiating its Act before adoption, while Malaysia is trying to move from consultation paper to finished statute inside a single year.

Enforcement philosophy differs too. Brussels built the AI Act around compliance that happens before deployment: conformity assessments, technical documentation, and sign off procedures similar to product safety certification, particularly for high risk systems. Malaysia's design leans more on an enablement first posture, with sandboxes, guidance, and incident reporting sitting alongside enforcement powers rather than in front of them, at least as currently framed. Whether that survives contact with the final legislative text is an open question. The consultation drew real pushback from law firms wanting harsher penalty ranges and clearer thresholds, so the version tabled in Parliament may look tougher than the one made public in July.

There's also a jurisdictional difference worth flagging. The EU AI Act has genuine extraterritorial teeth backed by the largest single market in the developed world, which is why companies far outside Europe still comply with it. Malaysia's Bill claims similarly broad reach on paper, covering any system used in Malaysia regardless of where it's hosted, but the practical leverage to enforce that against a foreign Developer is a different question entirely, and one the Edwin Lee and Partners (Law firm based in malaysia) submission specifically raised as a gap needing an international cooperation mechanism.

India and AI Regulation

India has spent the past year deliberately walking in the evolving direction. Through MeitY's India AI Governance Guidelines, released in November 2025 ahead of the India AI Impact Summit, explicitly reject a standalone AI statute in favour of what officials have repeatedly called a "light touch" model: seven guiding principles, trust, people first, innovation, fairness, accountability, transparency, and safety, layered on top of existing law rather than a new one. The Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the IT Act, 2000 with amendment rules, do most of the actual legal work, with sector regulators like the RBI and SEBI handling the specifics for their own industries.

The contrast with Malaysia is almost a case study in two governance philosophies. Where Malaysia is building a central authority with enforcement teeth from day one, India has so far preferred advisory bodies, an AI Governance Group and a proposed AI Safety Institute, that shape norms without imposing binding cross sectoral obligations. 

Where Malaysia's Bill would be justiciable law with penalties attached, India's framework is closer to a philosophy statement with sandboxes and a national incident database bolted on. That is not a weaker approach so much as a different, and arguably shrewd, bet. India is the world's largest testing ground for AI adoption at scale, from welfare delivery to vernacular language tools, and a heavy compliance regime risks slowing exactly the kind of grassroots experimentation the government is trying to encourage. Betting on existing law and institutional judgment, at least for now, keeps that door open, and it has let India move fast without waiting for a perfect law first.

That said, India's position has been visibly shifting. In July 2026, MeitY Secretary S. Krishnan signalled the government is now exploring dedicated AI legislation after all, a notable departure from the "no early regulation" stance the ministry had held in 2023, and this is likely accelerated by growing concern over deepfakes and synthetic media, which already prompted binding traceability and labelling obligations under amended intermediary rules earlier this year. 

The stakes for the next few months

None of this is finished. Malaysia's Bill is still a consultation paper, not enacted law, and the gap between what NAIO proposed in July and what Parliament eventually passes could be significant. Several submissions are already pushing for a wider harm list, sharper enforcement thresholds, and clearer rules for foreign Developers who never set foot in Kuala Lumpur. But the direction is set. Malaysia has decided AI governance can no longer run on goodwill and voluntary guidelines, and it now attempts to write enforceable AI law on a real deadline rather than settling for guidelines. However, the final Bill lives up to that ambition, or gets watered down in the process, is something only the next few months will show. 

References

• Ministry of Digital. "Kementerian Digital Mulakan Libat Urus Cadangan Rang Undang Undang Tadbir Urus Kecerdasan Buatan (AI)." 10 July 2026. https://www.digital.gov.my/en-GB/siaran/Kementerian-Digital-Mulakan-Libat-Urus-Cadangan-Rang-Undang-Undang-Tadbir-Urus-Kecerdasan-Buatan-(AI)
• Digital Watch Observatory. "Malaysia launches consultations on AI Governance Bill." July 2026. https://dig.watch/updates/malaysia-ai-governance-bill-consultation
• Baker McKenzie, Wong and Partners. "Malaysia: Public Consultation on the AI Governance Bill." July 2026. https://www.bakermckenzie.com/en/insight/publications/2026/07/malaysia-public-consultation-on-the-ai-governance-bill
• Digital Policy Alert. "Testing requirements in AI Governance Bill" and related entries on the National AI Office consultation. https://digitalpolicyalert.org
• Rahmat Lim and Partners. "National AI Office issues public consultation paper on proposed Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance Bill." https://www.rahmatlim.com/perspectives/articles/33264/mykh-national-ai-office-issues-public-consultation-paper-on-proposed-artificial-intelligence-ai-governance-bill
• Edwin Lee and Partners. "Malaysia's AI Governance Bill: Our Submission to the Consultation." https://lpplaw.my/ai-governance-malaysia/
• Kiizen. "Overview of the Proposed Malaysia's AI Governance Bill." https://www.kiizen.com.my/proposed-malaysias-ai-governance-bill/
• Zicelegal. "Consultation Alert: Public Consultation on Malaysia's AI Governance Bill." https://www.ziclegal.com/resources/consultation-alert-public-consultation-on-malaysias-ai-governance-bill
• Welcome.AI. "Malaysia's AI Governance Bill Expands Regulation and Accountability for Businesses." July 2026. https://www.welcome.ai/content/malaysias-ai-governance-bill-expands-regulation-and-accountability-for-businesses
• Regulations.ai. "Malaysia AI Regulation Overview." https://regulations.ai/regulations/RAI-MY-NA-SUMMARY-2026
• w.media. "Malaysia to enact AI law." https://w.media/malaysia-to-enact-ai-law/
• VisionIAS. "India's New AI Governance Guidelines Push Hands Off Approach." November 2025. https://visionias.in/blog/current-affairs/indias-new-ai-governance-guidelines-push-hands-off-approach
• EY India. "AI governance guidelines: A bet on innovation." https://www.ey.com/en_in/insights/ai/ai-governance-guidelines-a-bet-on-innovation
• TechnoSports. "Airegulation: Indian Government Finalizes AI Regulation." May 2026. https://technosports.co.in/airegulation-india-framework/
• The AI Track. "India AI Governance Guidelines Released for 2025 to 26." https://theaitrack.com/india-ai-governance-guidelines-2025/
• Lexology, contributed by a law firm. "India's AI Governance Model: MeitY's AI Guidelines and The Evolving Copyright Landscape." March 2026. https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=ffc0c58c-3727-4472-9914-5fa6a33ffffd
• Srishti IAS. "India's First AI Governance Framework 2026: Principles, Oversight, and Inclusive Growth Strategy." February 2026. https://srishtiias.com/india-first-ai-governance-framework-ahead-of-impact-summit-2026/
• Whalesbook. "India Plans Dedicated AI Law, Shifting From Light Touch Approach." July 2026. https://www.whalesbook.com/news/English/other/India-Plans-Dedicated-AI-Law-Shifting-From-Light-Touch-Approach/6a4811c9c7db2a6cf1650f24
• Saikrishna and Associates. "Decoding the India AI Governance Guidelines." November 2025. https://www.saikrishnaassociates.com/decoding-the-india-ai-governance-guidelines/
• News on Air. "MeitY Unveils India AI Governance Guidelines to Promote Safe and Responsible AI Adoption." 5 November 2025. https://www.newsonair.gov.in/meity-unveils-india-ai-governance-guidelines-to-promote-safe-and-responsible-ai-adoption

Contributors

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1. Maj. Vineet Kumar, Founder & Global President, CyberPeace 
2. Mr. Neeraj Soni, Senior Research Analyst, Policy & Advocacy, CyberPeace 

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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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