The government has asked Meta, owner of Instagram and Facebook, to ensure that its recommendation systems do not result in “disproportionate exposure of users to a single or limited set of narratives,” and to step up checks on content that could cause public disorder or incite violence or other unlawful activity.

The advisory by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), dated October 10, 2026, asked Meta to undertake appropriate measures to provide adequate context in relation to photographs, videos, graphics or other content depicting ongoing public events, particularly where the authenticity, date, location or circumstances of such content may not be readily apparent to users.

Although the advisory does not identify any specific incident that prompted its issuance, it comes amid protests led by the Cockroach Janta Party (CJP) and Opposition parties in Delhi, demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar over the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls.

In the advisory seen by PTI, Meta has also been asked to review its recommendation and content-ranking mechanisms to ensure that potentially misleading, manipulated or out-of-context content is not disproportionately amplified or repeatedly recommended to users.

“…ensure that recommendation systems do not result in disproportionate exposure of users to a single or limited set of narratives, and endeavour to provide appropriate diversity of relevant and credible information,” it said, while seeking the strengthening of mechanisms for rapid identification, review and escalation of content which is gaining significant reach through recommendation systems and has the potential to cause widespread public confusion, apprehension, violence or disturbance of public order.

When contacted, IT Ministry sources said the Ministry had reports from agencies that Meta platforms were not promoting all narratives equally, with their algorithms appearing to favour one kind of content over others.

In its advisory, MeitY also told Meta to ensure timely cooperation with law enforcement and other authorised government agencies, including furnishing information or assistance in accordance with applicable law and within the timelines prescribed under the IT Rules, 2021.

It said the Ministry had noticed that certain content relating to ongoing public events was being “prominently displayed and recommended to users” through platforms operated by Meta. Such content includes videos, images, statements and static graphics on public-order and law-and-order situations.

The Ministry said such material, when shown without adequate context or amplified disproportionately, “may contribute to public confusion, apprehension and disturbance of public order and social tranquillity.”

Citing the Information Technology Act, 2000, the advisory said Meta, as an intermediary, must observe due diligence under the IT Rules, 2021. These rules require intermediaries to inform users about prohibited information, including content likely to cause public disorder or incite a cognisable offence relating to public order.

MeitY asked Meta to pay particular attention to content that presents old, unrelated or selectively edited visuals as current events, and content with unverified or misleading claims about emergency, restrictions, police action or other official measures. It also flagged audio-visual material on law-and-order situations without adequate context, content likely to incite violence or other unlawful activity, and content being disproportionately amplified despite being potentially misleading.

The advisory outlined six specific asks for Meta, including measures to identify and address content under the IT Rules, and a review of its recommendation and ranking systems so that misleading, manipulated or out-of-context content is not “disproportionately amplified or repeatedly recommended to users.”

The Ministry emphasised that its advisory is intended to facilitate responsible dissemination and recommendation of information while respecting lawful expression and legitimate public discourse.

“Meta is advised to ensure that any action taken pursuant to this advisory is consistent with the Information Technology Act, 2000, the IT Rules, 2021, and other applicable laws,” it said.

The social media giant has been advised to take the necessary measures “with immediate effect” and apprise the Ministry of the action taken.

Apar Gupta, founder director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group, said that while the advisory is not legally binding, it amounts to a “continuing censorship directive.”

MeitY must withdraw this advisory forthwith, and Meta must publicly disclose every takedown and every act of downranking carried out under it, he said.

“Even this advisory, which contains phrases like content ‘without adequate context’ and periods of ‘heightened public-order sensitivity,’ is not tied to any provision of the IT Act or the IT Rules,” he said.

Published – October 19, 2026 01:11 pm IST

Across leading cancer journals, clusters of interconnected papers bearing the hallmarks of paper mill products accumulate far more citations than other papers despite having fewer readers, the authors wrote |Image used for representational purpose only
| Photo Credit: Getty Images

Taira Malaney will never forget the female olive ridley sea turtle she encountered one evening while shooting her film, Turtle Walker, in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. “She came up and just kept digging and digging and digging. I think she must have done so for nine hours,” remembers the Goa-based writer, director, and producer. Finally, at dawn, she started laying her eggs, recalls Taira, who worked closely with the forest department to access and find these turtle nesting sites. “It was a beautiful sunrise, and we sat around these forest rangers, people who really work to protect these animals every day. It was really special to witness this.”

From footage of this very turtle laying her eggs to close-ups of bizarrely beautiful sea creatures in their natural habitat and shots of surf-swept shores towards which baby turtles skitter, Turtle Walker is full of visually stunning imagery, drawing its viewers deep into the story of these primaeval reptiles. “It was really important to reach audiences who have not had exposure to the beauty of marine life that we have in our country,” says Taira, the founder of Emaho Films.

She firmly believes the first step towards conserving India’s remarkably diverse marine wildlife is to help people experience the sense of awe of seeing and learning about them. “I think that the first step towards wanting to protect something is to feel connected to it,” she says of the film, which has been co-produced by Tiger Baby Films, Emaho Films, and HHMI Tangled Bank Studios.

Taira also believes that the best way to do this is by telling human stories, even for a film about wildlife, “because we connect with each other’s emotions, very directly.” In Turtle Walker, which will premiere on Animal Planet this week, the late Satish Bhaskar, ‘Mr Sea Turtle’, becomes the vehicle through which this happens. “I thought that through Satish’s story, people can connect with the animal and the ecosystems they call home,” she says.

Explaining why the film, part of Animal Planet’s India: Epic Wild Stories anthology, is so special, Sai Abishek, Head of Factual Entertainment, Lifestyle & Kids, South Asia, Skydance, whose portfolio includes Animal Planet, says, “Within this anthology, Turtle Walker stood out for the way it brings together an extraordinary personal journey and a larger story about marine conservation.” He also points out that Satish Bhaskar’s decades of work with sea turtles and his deep connection to India’s coastlines and islands offer a compelling perspective on the people who dedicate their lives to understanding and protecting the natural world.

“His indomitable spirit saved the enigmatic creatures from extinction and reminds us how precious our planet is,” says Zoya Akhtar, the co-founder of Tiger Baby Films, about Satish Bhaskar, who, she adds, walked nearly every inch of India’s coastline to discover the nesting beaches of sea turtles so that they could be protected.

Genesis

Taira first heard of turtle conservationist Satish Bhaskar when, after graduating with a BA in Psychology from Occidental College in 2013, she moved to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to work with a marine conservation organisation. “When you are there, you hear stories about people like Romulus ‘Rom’ Whitaker and Satish Bhaskar, all part of the Andaman and Nicobar environment team (ANET), researchers who had studied sea turtles and other wildlife there,” she says. “Those stories stuck with me.”

Then, when she returned to mainland India and began looking for stories for a film about people and their connection to the natural world, she came across an article about Satish, written by Rom. “I have always been interested in the psychology behind humans and nature, what draws people to protect these wild spaces,” says Taira, who found herself captivated by the stories about Satish, “some of which were too good to be true.”

She decided that she wanted to find this man, who had played such a crucial role in turtle conservation in India, undertaking a solitary, epic journey on foot to document sea turtle nesting sites along India’s coastline and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. ”When Satish started, there was no blueprint for where these turtles nest. That is what set him on this journey, literally walking across India’s entire coastline,” says Taira, who soon discovered that Satish lived just an hour away from her own home in Goa.

And so she met the introverted Satish, who opened up to her about his passion for turtles. “We spent a lot of years just doing research interviews, spending time together, just learning his stories and sharing meals,” says Taira, who believes that the process of building trust with a participant is a crucial part of what it means to be a documentary filmmaker and storyteller. “I think that is why it takes so long. It has been a nearly nine-year-long journey.”

Film facts

Turtle Walker uses cinematic recreations, archival photographs, stunning wildlife cinematography and interviews with Satish and his wife, Brenda, to tell his story. “The recreations were a tool we decided to employ once we realised that so much of the film had taken place in the past, and we did not have access to archival footage,” she says.

Instead, her close friend, artist Rohan Joglekar, a slight man who bears more than a passing resemblance to Satish, played his younger self, walking through tawny sand and azure ocean, intent on his mission. “The entire story is scripted around one long interview, which forms the backbone of the film, and then we used his narration to storyboard how we would shoot these recreations,” says Taira, adding that Satish played a vital part in this process, guiding Rohan through these sequences. “For us, it was a necessary choice because there is no way you can transport people to these remote places without taking them there,” she says.

The film, which went on to win accolades worldwide, including the Grand Teton Award at the Jackson Wild Media Awards, premiered at Doc NYC 2024 in New York in November that year. By the time it did, however, both Satish and Brenda had sadly passed away in 2022 and 2023 respectively, without ever seeing the final version of the film. “He did see a longer version of the film, but not in its fully-finished form. I am very grateful, however, that he could see this longer version and give us his input and how he felt about it,” she says, recalling how positively Satish’s children responded to it. “They cried a lot when they watched it; it was a very emotional experience for them.”

In Taira’s view, given that the film highlights not just the importance of these nesting sites, but also the resilience of these animals, who bounced back after the 2004 tsunami, “having a story like that is very important in today’s day and age. Despite the challenges we are facing with the environment, it is quite inspiring to see what a person can do to make an impact.” She hopes that when people watch the film, they will feel the same pride she did for India’s immense marine biodiversity. “I also hope that it inspires people to take up challenges that they are not sure that they can handle, because we can see with Satish’s story that it is possible to change the future for an entire species.”

Turtle Walker is releasing on October 19, 9 pm on Animal Planet.

The shortage of doctors in India, particularly in rural areas, is well documented. This shortage compounds the suffering of rural communities, where people must suffer not only with disease but also with the struggle to access care. Illness in rural India is therefore not merely a departure from good health. It can push entire families into generational poverty and, in some cases, drive people to take their own lives. It is no coincidence that illness is among the leading causes of suicide in India.

To address this disparity, doctors are routinely called upon to move to rural areas and serve those most in need. Instead of fixing an underfunded healthcare system, the responsibility is placed on individual doctors to be “good” and fill the void left by governments that have consistently failed to prioritise people’s health.

I define a good doctor as someone who is compassionate, competent, and courageous. However, I am increasingly realising how risky it is to be such a doctor in India.

Being a good doctor

A good doctor is not merely empathetic. Compassion goes beyond feeling another person’s pain; it demands action to alleviate it. Over time, doctors who take this responsibility seriously begin to recognise that a prescription or surgery may address a symptom without touching the larger suffering that produced it. They begin asking why a person fell sick in the first place. And that is what makes them risky.

In Indian medical colleges, disease is often taught as the consequence of an infection, a genetic predisposition, or an unhealthy lifestyle. But step outside these institutions and into the communities where disease takes root, and you begin to understand how inadequate this framework can be. The people living with illness often understand its causes very differently from the institutions tasked with treating it.

“What is your biggest problem in the village?” I asked 25 villagers in rural Assam who had gathered for a cancer screening camp.

“We don’t have a road here, which makes it difficult to travel to and from the village,” said the eldest man in the group. The others nodded. “Because of the poor road, it is difficult to bring water into the village. When somebody falls sick, we cannot take them to the hospital on time,” he continued.

The connections were obvious. The absence of a road restricted access to water and healthcare. Inadequate access to water exposed people to illness, while poor connectivity delayed treatment. These were not separate problems. They were interconnected consequences of deprivation.

Last year, in a village in rural Tamil Nadu, I learnt how health was tied to land rights. “The government took our land away and gave us land 20 km away. We cannot grow anything on that land. We do not have money to buy food every day. Whatever we grow is what we eat,” a group of Adivasis living in the hamlet told me.

When people cannot access adequate food, clean water, or timely healthcare, can the solution to their illness really end with a prescription?

Why a good doctor is risky

A good doctor begins to understand that a prescription cannot compensate for the denial of land rights, that surgery cannot undo displacement, and that no medicine can substitute for the basic infrastructure a government has failed to provide. They recognise that confronting corruption and demanding accountability for broken promises may do more to protect a community’s health than any individual clinical intervention.

Dr. Binayak Sen understood this. A paediatrician and public health specialist, he served rural communities in Chhattisgarh while questioning the structural conditions that shaped their health. “At present, the greatest violence is structural violence. Violence is not restricted to a few groups; it pervades the structure of our society. We need to break out of this structure of violence through a process of dialogue,” he said in an interview with The Hindu.

Anyone who has travelled through rural Chhattisgarh, or indeed much of rural India, will recognise the realities underlying this argument. People do not fall sick simply because of individual choices or personal failures. Poverty, malnutrition, displacement, hunger and illiteracy all shape health outcomes. So does a government that fails to address these conditions. To treat the resulting illnesses without confronting their causes is to leave the machinery of suffering intact.

In 2010, Dr. Sen was convicted on charges relating to his alleged links with Naxalites and sentenced to life imprisonment. His case became symbolic of the risks faced by those who challenge the political and economic structures governing people’s lives. In his acceptance speech for the Paul Harrison Award for Meritorious Service in Rural Areas in 2004, Sen had argued: “The first point that I would like to make is about the primacy of politics in any relevant programme for health and health care. By politics I do not mean the farcical electoral charades of political parties, but the matrix of power that determines control over resources at entry level of community.”

Nearly two decades later, the question of what happens to doctors who challenge these structures remains painfully relevant.

Randall Sequeira, a general medicine specialist and rural practitioner, was arrested on October 16 and, according to reports, remains in judicial custody. His work with Adivasi communities in Odisha has involved addressing health concerns linked to mining activities. He has also stood in solidarity with these communities in their resistance to mining projects.

The implications are chilling. When a doctor connects illness to the consequences of mining, displacement and the denial of rights, healthcare ceases to be a politically neutral exercise. It becomes a challenge to the interests that benefit from these conditions remaining unchanged; conditions that ideally the state should be preventing. A doctor working with marginalised communities should not have to fear incarceration for asking why those communities are being made sick.

What will it take to keep India healthy?

What, then, does India need to keep its people healthy? More evidence on the health consequences of mining? Or do we need yet another explanation of how dispossession, exploitation and crony capitalism devastate Adivasi communities?

Evidence matters, but evidence alone cannot protect people when the political will to act on it is absent, or when those who demand accountability are treated as threats.

India needs good doctors more than ever. Not merely competent clinicians who are up to date with the latest evidence, write appropriate prescriptions and perform complex surgeries, but doctors who have the courage to question the systems that repeatedly make their patients sick. Doctors who understand that health is inseparable from the distribution of land, wealth, power and public resources. Doctors who refuse to accept preventable suffering as an inevitable feature of life for the poor.

Healthcare workers have a moral responsibility that extends beyond the consulting room. They must challenge the forces that expose people to disease, deny them care and then blame them for their suffering. This does not mean that every doctor must become an activist or that clinical care is unimportant. It means recognising the limits of medicine when the conditions producing illness are left untouched.

But a doctor who speaks about these conditions risks being labelled a troublemaker, an agitator or a threat to the state. The experiences of Dr. Sen and Dr. Sequeira raise an urgent question: what kind of society punishes those who seek to protect the health of its most marginalised people?

If being a good doctor means treating the patient while remaining silent about the forces making that patient sick, then perhaps we need to reconsider what goodness in medicine means. And if questioning those forces is enough to put a doctor’s freedom at risk, the problem is not with the doctor.

It is time for healthcare workers to speak up, collectively and without fear. Silence is not neutrality when the suffering is preventable, and the forces responsible are identifiable. The longer we remain silent, the easier it becomes for those in power to keep the tap of suffering open.

(Dr. Parth Sharma is a community medicine physician and a public health palliative care researcher. parth.sharma25@gmail.com)

A view of radio telescopes of the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array in the U.S.
| Photo Credit: Yifu Wu/Unsplash

Deep within the intestinal wall, beyond where digestion and nutrient absorption occur, are immune outposts called solitary isolated lymphoid tissues, or SILTs. These structures host cells that govern how aggressively the gut reacts to microbes. A weak response lets pathogens take root while an overactive one causes the immune system to attack the gut — a hallmark of inflammatory disorders like Crohn’s disease.

A new study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has traced this balancing act to a protein called RelB. By engineering mice lacking RelB in these cells, researchers at the National Institute of Immunology (NII), New Delhi, uncovered a paradox: the same protein drives opposite effects depending on its cellular environment and anatomical niche.

The finding could matter for patients with inflammatory bowel disease because a drug that targets an overactive immune response may also weaken the gut’s ability to fight harmful bacteria. And understanding where RelB is helping or hurting could be important before this pathway is considered for treatment.

The gate-keeper

To execute many of its immune effects, the gut relies on IL-23, a signalling molecule that triggers inflammation to ward off threats.

IL-23 “functions as an alarm system at barrier surfaces such as the gut, skin, and lungs,” Gourishankar Ghosh, a professor of chemistry and biochemistry at University of California San Diego, U.S., said.

In the gut, it sparks a chain reaction that switches on antimicrobial defences. “However, uncontrolled production can drive chronic inflammatory diseases, including psoriasis and inflammatory bowel disease.”

The researchers found RelB is a gatekeeper for this system: it dictates whether the gut can even produce the sentinel dendritic cells residing in SILT outposts to make IL-23. In RelB-deficient mice, this defender population nearly vanished.

Soumen Basak, an immunologist at NII who led the study, explained that earlier research suggested RelB simply helped existing cells pump out IL-23. Faced with the missing cells, the team investigated further.

“We considered two possible explanations: either the absence of … RelB reduced the number of IL-23-producing [dendritic cells] in these mice or simply a lack of RelB impaired the ability of these dendritic cells to make IL-23,” Dr. Basak said.

The study proved the former is the primary culprit.

Known troublemaker

However, RelB does not act as a heroic shield everywhere in the gut. While it builds a protective army in the intestinal wall, it suppresses regulatory T-cells — the immune system’s peacekeepers — in the nearby lymph nodes.

Earlier work from Dr. Basak’s lab found that by shutting down these peacekeepers, RelB worsens chronic intestinal inflammation.

The answer to how a single protein pulls off this Jekyll-and-Hyde routine might lie in the dendritic cells themselves.

Devesha Kulkarni, assistant professor of medicine at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said dendritic cells are “not one fixed cell type” with a single job. Instead, they are shapeshifters that adopt distinct identities based on the tissue they lie in and the local chemical signals.

And now, scientists know RelB helps fix that local identity — a role Dr. Basak said he considers to be a major conceptual leap.

Flipping the switch

The researchers found RelB switches on the production of a second protein, RBP-J. This acts as a key, unlocking a completely different communication network. And only when this connection completes can immature cells develop into the gut’s specialised IL-23-producing sentinels.

The finding reveals a surprising twist: two systems long assumed to operate independently — RelB and the communication network — actually cooperate to arm the gut.

“Making a delicious dish requires the right combination of many ingredients — salt, turmeric, garlic, ginger, and spices,” Dr. Basak said. “Each ingredient contributes a unique flavour, but none can produce the desired taste on its own. Our study emphasises that signalling pathways must also work together in a coordinated manner to generate appropriate cellular and immune responses.”

That said, a deeper mystery remains: how can a single protein act as a brake in one context and an accelerator in another?

Alexander Hoffmann, professor of immunology at UCLA, said the contradiction comes down to competition. RelB, he said, is a relatively weak activator compared to its cousin, RelA, so when both proteins try to access the same gene, the weaker RelB gets in the way.

By blocking RelA’s strong signal, RelB dials down the overall effect so “it seems like a repressor,” Dr. Hoffmann explained.

But on genes that RelA cannot access — like the one that triggers the gut’s defenses — “RelB’s weak activation potential is sufficient to drive gene expression.”

“This new work is a remarkable example of how the Basak lab over many years has developed expertise in dissecting complex networks of interaction,” he added.

Delicate drug target

Drugs that block IL-23 are already frontline treatments for inflammatory bowel disease, making RelB an intriguing but delicate new drug target. Because the protein acts as both guardian and saboteur depending on its neighbourhood, safely targeting it remains a complex challenge.

Saurabh Mehandru, associate professor of Gastroenterology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, said that because the research used mice, “the findings will need to be extended before they can be read directly into patient care.”

He also pointed to a key gap that Basak’s team has also acknowledged: because the protective cell clusters are almost entirely missing in the modified mice, it is difficult to prove whether RelB is required to build those cells in the first place or simply to keep them alive once they are formed. Future experiments tracking the lifespans of these cells will ultimately settle that debate, Dr. Mehandru added.

Dr. Basak is already looking ahead. His team wants to know if the relay operates at other vulnerable barriers, like the lungs, and whether tweaking it could yield new treatments.

Anirban Mukhopadhyay is a geneticist by training and science communicator from New Delhi.

Published – October 19, 2026 09:00 am IST