The unlimited freedom made social media platforms are susceptible to misuse, misinformation, and thus, fake news. In the last few years, social media has turned out to be a massive player in shaping public discourse in a democratic space (Marda & Milan, 2018). Though there have been pressures from policymakers on service/platform providers, nothing concrete has built up towards accountability of the user or platform proprietors. In India, there has been a consistent increase of social media users and instances of the misuse of this medium. This paper seeks to examine how the propagation of fake news has disrupted the public sphere and possible policies that can be implemented to curb the plague of fake news. The relationship between various events of violence reported in India media and the role of fake news in instigating chaos are discussed in this paper. It also tries to review policies initiatives taken by various countries, especially in Europe and possible measures which India could take to restrict the flow of fake news.

Contemporary education system in India was initiated by the British for the maintenance of their imperial administration. After India became an independent country, conscious efforts were made to overhaul the educational system to produce proper administrators and contributors for Indian polity, economy and culture. To assess dynamics of Indian education, various committees and commissions were formed. It also meant change in education programs, curricula and syllabi to meet national needs and global challenges. Most universities in India have limited infrastructure, thus the role of private or deemed to be university becomes crucial. Christ University attending to the social structure, internationalization and employability demands, offers a number of quality educational programs to ensure employable graduates. This has led the way in devising pedagogy and curricula to align with the global higher education practices. Here we discuss the use of commercial feature film as a pedagogical tool in the classrooms within the Deanery of Humanities and Social Sciences and its implication.

With the onset of the pandemic, there has been a massive shift and transformation in the way knowledge is disseminated. There has been a rise in distance/online learning, this includes teachers teaching remotely using various digital platforms. With almost two years of virtual learning, this has led to a demand for both teachers and students to upskill and equip themselves with technological capability. Effectiveness of e-learning has emerged to be an area of research, particularly in this context of the pandemic. This study explores the effectiveness of this alternate method of teaching on students with learning disabilities through the lens of parents and special tutors from renowned special schools in South Bangalore using interviews and focus group discussions. A pre-designed Likert scale questionnaire was also administered to 170 students with learning disabilities in South Bangalore to record the academic challenges they faced during their online classes. Results from the interactions with both parents and special tutors reveal there is a need to revisit learning and teaching strategies and improve access to new media educational technologies to help maximise uptake and success of the e-learning approach in the context of special education. Parents believe that the learner needs of children with disabilities during the remote learning scenario were not taken into consideration, special tutors shared their experience and limitations some which included difficulty in handling online classes, lack of financial support to invest in relevant technological platforms. The findings from this exploratory study highlight both the need for improving pedagogy in the remote learning contexts along with tutors requiring professional development workshops to conduct effective online classes that include incorporating various digital tools that meets the educational needs of children with learning disabilities. The study serves as an eye opener for special tutors, local education authorities and school administrators to revisit lesson plans, online teaching approaches, explore and invest in potential digital tools that could meet learner needs and improve the learning curve during the pandemic.