#FactCheck: Edited Broadcast Misused to Spread False Assam Political Rift Claim

Executive Summary:

A viral photo on social media claims to show a ruined bridge in Kerala, India. But, a reality check shows that the bridge is in Amtali, Barguna district, Bangladesh. The reverse image search of this picture led to a Bengali news article detailing the bridge's critical condition. This bridge was built-in 2002 to 2006 over Jugia Khal in Arpangashia Union. It has not been repaired and experiences recurrent accidents and has the potential to collapse, which would disrupt local connectivity. Thus, the social media claims are false and misleading.

Claims:

Social Media users share a photo that shows a ruined bridge in Kerala, India. 

Fact Check:

On receiving the posts, we reverse searched the image which leads to a Bengali News website named Manavjamin where the title displays, “19 dangerous bridges in Amtali, lakhs of people in fear”. We found the picture on this website similar to the viral image. On reading the whole article, we found that the bridge is located in Bangladesh's Amtali sub-district of Barguna district.

Taking a cue from this, we then searched for the bridge in that region. We found a similar bridge at the same location in Amtali, Bangladesh.

According to the article, The 40-meter bridge over Jugia Khal in Arpangashia Union, Amtali, was built in 2002 to 2006 and was never repaired. It is in a critical condition, causing frequent accidents and risking collapse. If the bridge collapses it will disrupt communication between multiple villages and the upazila town. Residents have made temporary repairs. 

Hence, the claims made by social media users are fake and misleading.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the viral photo claiming to show a ruined bridge in Kerala is actually from Amtali, Barguna district, Bangladesh. The bridge is in a critical state, with frequent accidents and the risk of collapse threatening local connectivity. Therefore, the claims made by social media users are false and misleading.

• Claim: A viral image shows a ruined bridge in Kerala, India. 
• Claimed on: Facebook
• Fact Check: Fake & Misleading

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Introduction

For much of the past two decades, India's contribution to the global technology economy was defined by software services and consumer internet platforms, which is a model that built enormous wealth and made the country the world's third-largest startup ecosystem.

That story is changing. More than ever before, the best received pitches in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Chennai are for rocket propulsion, semiconductor design, and autonomous hardware, not apps. And this isn't just a style choice of what gets funded. It's the real concentration of money, people, and political support around "deep tech" ventures based on frontier science and engineering breakthroughs as opposed to incremental software work.

The Data Behind the Narrative

The scale of this shift is now visible in hard numbers. In fact, Indian deeptech companies cumulatively raised $11.4 billion in funding between 2015 and mid-2026, according to the Bharat Deep Tech Report 2026 published by the Indian Venture and Alternate Capital Association (IVCA). 2025 was a record year for Indian deeptech firms, which saw a total raise of $2.96 billion across 189 deals, despite a slowdown in funding in the Indian startup ecosystem overall. Analytically speaking, here is what that reveals: investors haven't just raised the tide with the roadmap; they have explicitly taken a far-flung sector-specific decision to reallocate the capital and instead pursue science-and-engineering-led startups, even when pulling back elsewhere.

That very same report further pointed out that over 85% of all the deeptech funding raised in India since 2015 was obtained in the last six years, suggesting that the sector has only very recently come of age and matured from doing mostly early proof-of-concept experiments to delivering products that have undergone verifiable commercialisation. Of all the capital, funding and deals raised, AI and generative AI, followed by electric vehicles and battery technology, were the highest in terms of both dollars and the number of deals, while semiconductors and space tech were identified as the fastest-growing industrial segments and areas of research, consistent with India's national aspirations around technological self-sufficiency. When it comes to the distribution of deals and funding across India, the report found that Bengaluru on its own accounts for nearly 50%, with the rest of the country grabbing less than half. 

Space as the Sector's Proof Point

If any single industry illustrates the credibility of India's hardware pivot, it is private space. Skyroot Aerospace's trajectory offers a useful case study. In May 2026, the Hyderabad-based launch vehicle company raised approximately $60 million in a round co-led by Sherpalo Ventures and GIC, with participation from BlackRock-managed funds, Arkam Ventures, and the Shanghvi Family Office, pushing its valuation to $1.1 billion and making it India's first space-tech unicorn. The round is notable not just for its size but for its composition: sovereign wealth capital (GIC) and global asset managers (BlackRock) backing a hardware company whose Vikram-1 rocket is roughly 95% indigenously built and expected to draw significant demand from the global telecommunications sector, with around 90% of Skyroot's customers based outside India. That the company's valuation nearly doubled in about thirty months also suggests investors are pricing in execution risk more favourably than in earlier cycles, when Indian hardware ventures were often viewed as uninvestable relative to their software counterparts.

This is not the only data point. Alongside Skyroot, companies including Agnikul Cosmos, Dhruva Space, Pixxel and Digantara are working on propulsion, satellite platforms and orbital-debris-tracking technology. Even if all of the Indian space startups do not go on to become businesses on the scale of ISRO, the existence of so many private-sector firms working on these goods and services shows the ecosystem in India is maturing. India's private space startup ecosystem lines up with broader sector reporting that India's private space startup ecosystem is approaching 440 companies as the private-sector push gathers speed through 2026.

Policy Architecture and Patient Capital

A defining characteristic of deeptech like the long R&D cycles, capital-heavy prototyping, and complex regulation makes deeptech firms structurally different from software startups, and Indian policymakers seem to be acknowledging as much. In April 2026, the government announced the Startup India Fund of Funds 2.0, creating a corpus of 10,000 crores to acquire commitments to Alternative Investment Funds, with a focus on deeptech, technology-focused manufacturing and early-growth-stage companies. The intention here, as was articulated, was to increase the supply of institutional capital for companies that diverge from software-investing norms. This complements the operational R & D and Innovation (RDI) Scheme and the India Semiconductor Mission, creating a multilayer public-capital framework for deeptech commercialisation.

Yet the same IVCA survey data complicates any triumphalist reading. Despite these schemes, 40% of surveyed venture funds reported having never engaged with any government capital vehicle, pointing to a persistent gap between policy design and on-the-ground fund utilisation. More critically, the survey identified a structural weak point in the financing pipeline: fund participation drops sharply at the Series B/C stage, with fewer investors able to write larger cheques to growth-stage companies.

Perhaps the single biggest limiting factor for the long term of deeptech in India. Spotting and encouraging deeptech entrepreneurs has definitely begun, but long-term success hinges on an ecosystem that can finance deeptech innovators through the critical scale-up phase – larger-ticket funds that many deeptech firms need to grow from a proof of concept into full-scale commercial products globally. Traditionally, Indian hardware startups have been quickly sold off or listed in foreign markets.

The exit environment reflects this immaturity. IVCA data shows 62% of funds cited exit visibility as their primary challenge, with secondary transactions accounting for 56% of all exits in the period studied, which is a signal that public-market exits (IPOs) remain the exception rather than the rule for deep-tech companies, unlike in India's more established software and fintech sectors.

An Analytical Assessment

Overall, the body of data confirms a measured yet real read on structural change rather than hype about cycles. How funding has focused on AI, semiconductors and spacetech; how some credible unicorns were born using homegrown hardware (like Skyroot); how policy and a fund-of-funds ecosystem were purposefully built – these all led, in Rajat Tandon's words, "from promise to more investible commitments, with an increasingly institutionalised ecosystem play".

However, three analytical caveats temper the enthusiasm. First, India's deep tech capital base,  while growing rapidly in percentage terms, remains small in absolute terms relative to the United States and China, and much of it is still concentrated in early rounds rather than growth-stage financing. Second, geographic concentration in Bengaluru risks under-leveraging engineering talent elsewhere in the country. Third, and most consequentially, cross-border regulatory friction, export controls, dual-use technology restrictions, and the need for internationally recognised IP protection remains a binding constraint for hardware ventures seeking to scale beyond the domestic market, a challenge that policy alone cannot resolve.

Conclusion

India's transition from software exporter to deep-tech engineer is therefore real, measurable, and policy-supported, but it is a transition still in its early-to-middle innings, dependent on whether growth-stage capital and international market access can keep pace with early-stage enthusiasm and government intent.

Sources

1. YourStory — Indian deeptech investments reach $11.4B: Report
2. Outlook Business — India's Deeptech Funding Crosses $11 Bn As Investors Turn To AI, Semiconductors
3. Business Standard — Over 85% of India's deeptech funding raised in past six years: IVCA
4. The Week — Skyroot Aerospace becomes India's first space tech unicorn
5. Outlook Business — Skyroot Aerospace Reaches Unicorn Orbit as Vikram-1 Launch Countdown Begins
6. SatelliteToday — Skyroot Secures $60M in Funding, Becoming India's First Space 'Unicorn'
7. Convergence Now — India's Startup Funding Map: AI, Sustainability & Deeptech Leading the Next Wave
8. Seafund — DeepTech Startups in India: Funding & Innovation 2026
9. YourStory (original reference article) — From software to satellites: Why India's next venture opportunity lies in deeptech

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Data has become a critical asset for the advancement of a nation’s economic, social, and technological development. India’s emergence as a global digital economy hub makes it necessary to create a robust framework that addresses the challenges and opportunities of digital transformation. The Indian government introduced the Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy in 2022, aiming to create a comprehensive data handling and governance framework. This policy draft addresses key challenges in data management, privacy, and digital economy growth.  As per the recent media reports, the Draft National Data Governance Policy so prepared is under the finalisation stage, the government specified in its implementation document for the Budget 2023-24 announcement. The policy also aims to address the country's AI adoption and the issue of lack of datasets by providing widespread access to anonymized data.

Background and Need for the Policy

India has a robust digital economy with its adoption of the Digital India Initiative, Aadhaar digital identification, UPI for seamless payments and many more. In India, 751.5 million people connect to the internet, and is home to 462.0 million social media users in January 2024, equivalent to 32.2% of its total population (Data Reportal 2024). This has brought challenges including data privacy concerns, cybersecurity threats, digital exclusion, and a need for better regulation frameworks. To overcome them, the Draft National Data Governance Policy has been designed to provide institutional frameworks for data rules, standards, guidelines, and protocols for the sharing of non-personal data sets in a manner that ensures privacy, security, and trust so that they remain secure, transparent, and accountable.

Objectives omphasizesf the Framework 

The objective of the Framework Policy is to accelerate Digital Governance in India. The framework will standardize data management and security standards across the Government. It will promote transparency, accountability, and ownership in Non-Personal data and dataset access and build a platform to receive and process data requests. It will also set quality standards and promote the expansion of the datasets program and overall non-personal ecosystem. Further, it aims to build India’s digital government goals and capacity, knowledge, and competency in Government departments and entities. All this would be done while ensuring greater citizen awareness, participation, and engagement. 

Key Provisions of the Draft Policy 

The Draft Framework Policy aims to establish a cohesive digital governance ecosystem in India that balances the need for data utilization with protecting citizens' privacy rights. It sets up an institutional framework of the "India Data Management Office (IDMO) set up under the Digital India Corporation (DIC) which will be responsible for developing rules, standards, and guidelines under this Policy. 

The key provisions of the framework policy include: 

• Promoting interoperability among government digital platforms, ensuring data privacy through data anonymization and security, and enhancing citizen access to government services through digital means. 
• The policy e the creation of unified digital IDs, a standardisation in digital processes, and data-sharing guidelines across ministries to improve efficiency. 
• It also focuses on building digital infrastructure, such as cloud services and data centres in order to support e-governance initiatives. 
• Furthermore, it encourages public-private partnerships and sets guidelines for accountability and transparency in digital governance.

Implications and Concerns of the Framework 

• The policy potentially impacts data sharing in India as it mentions data anonymization. The scale of data that would need to be anonymised in India is at a very large scale and it could become a potential challenge to engage in. 
• Data localization and cross-border transfers have raised concerns among global tech companies and trade partners. They argue that such requirements could increase operational costs and hinder cross-border data flows. Striking a balance between protecting national interests and facilitating business operations remains a critical challenge.
• Another challenge associated with the policy is over-data centralization under the IDMO and the potential risks of government overreach in data access.

Key Takeaways and Recommendations

The GDPR in the European Union and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act passed in 2023 in India and many others are the data privacy laws in force in different countries. The policy needs to be aligned with the DPDP Act, 2023 and be updated as per the recent developments. It further needs to maintain transparency over the sharing of data and a user’s control. The policy needs engagement with industry experts, privacy advocates, and civil society to ensure a balance of innovation with privacy and security.

Conclusion

The Draft National Data Governance Framework Policy of 2022 represents a significant stage in shaping India's digital future. It ensures the evolution of data governance evolves alongside technological advancements. The framework policy seeks to foster a robust digital ecosystem that benefits citizens, businesses, and the government alike by focusing on the essentials of data privacy, transparency, and security. However, achieving this vision requires addressing concerns like data centralisation, cross-border data flows, and maintaining alignment with global privacy standards. Continued engagement with stakeholders and necessary updates to the draft policy will be crucial to its success in balancing innovation with user rights and data integrity. The final version of the policy is expected to be released soon.

References

• https://meity.gov.in/writereaddata/files/National-Data-Governance-Framework-Policy.pdf
• https://datareportal.com/?utm_source=DataReportal&utm_medium=Country_Article_Hyperlink&utm_campaign=Digital_2024&utm_term=India&utm_content=Home_Page_Link
• https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2023/03/data-by-people-for-people-tiwari-packer-matthan
• https://inc42.com/buzz/draft-national-data-governance-policy-under-finalisation-centre/  
• https://legal.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/government-unveiled-national-data-governance-policy-in-budget-2023/97680515

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