GUWAHATI, May 1 - In the time of medical emergency, fake news becomes an obnoxious traitor for the common people, misleading the public by giving a devious spin to truth.
In today�s digital world, especially, it�s really a challenge for the government machinery to stop the spread of fake news. Yet, a section of conscious people have been trying their best to foil the deliberate attempts of the enemies of society at spreading lies without any scruple whatsoever.
Recently, Dr Anamika Ray Memorial Trust, a registered educational and charitable nonprofit organisation, carried out a monthlong campaign �#CheckTheFake on COVID-19� to make people aware about fake news amid the prevailing situation. The Assam Tribune played a crucial part in this unique campaign against falsehood.
As part of this campaign, the Trust developed two cartoon characters � Infodemic and Pandemic � and through a witty dialogue between them, rendered various fake information useless.
Explaining about the campaign, managing trustee of the organisation Dr Ankuran Dutta said, �During the lockdown, we initiated the campaign against fake news or information disorder including misinformation, disinformation and mal-information.�
Talking about the two cartoon characters, he said �Pandemic� was shown to be the COVID-19 virus itself which is confident of destroying the human civilization, as there has been no antidote against him as yet. �Infodemic� on the other hand was made to come across as overconfident and stubborn, as he had all the tricks up his sleeve to mislead the gullible commoners.
Cartoonist Nituparna Rajbongshi, who created the characters, said, �We used the colour yellow for the character Infodemic to symbolise yellow journalism. Many topics were touched upon through these two characters.�
