Recently I saw the fake news about the death of actress Farida Jalal. I was shocked to see how media is being used as a tool to play with human emotions.It is really astonishing that alive person is being termed as dead.

Meaning of Fake News:

• Fake news is an act of manipulating human beings and compelling them to believe in such misleading information and generating a sense of mistrust in the institution of media.
• It is an intentionally created  information containing factually incorrect content to mislead people for personal gains.
• With the rising influence of social media, internet, networking sites etc the frequency and the intensity of fake news has increased manifold times.

Recent incidences of fake news:

• The recent fake news report of Israeli's planning to attack Pakistan with nuclear weapon against sending troops to Syria, made Pakistan's Defense Minister threaten Israel with retaliatory nuclear attack.
• In India a fake news was spread that the new Rs 2000 note contains an embedded GPS tracking chip.
• In 2012 Assamese were targeted in Bengaluru on the basis of fake news.

Impact of fake news:

• Fake news can have huge implications on political, economic, military ans social aspect of a nation.
• The recent fake news report of Israeli's planning to attack Pakistan with nuclear weapon against sending troops to Syria made Pakistan's Defense Minister threaten Israel with retaliatory nuclear attack.We need to realize the intensity of such a dangerous news and its implications on security of the country.
• Such news could cause panic in people,it may lead to protest and  conflict leading to a disastrous situation.
• If such trend of fake news continues then it can erode the base of trust in the media,people would no more believe in true facts too.
• It hampers the spirit of fraternity and peaceful living and raises intolerance among mass

Way-ahead:

Press is considered as the fourth and one of the important pillars of democracy.Our Constitution under Article 19 guarantees freedom of speech and expression.Hence media,press being an important institution, its their moral responsibility to use Article 19 in true sense by publishing news based on true facts and incidences Internet is a source of information,it connects people from around the world hence its our moral responsibility to preserve its sanity and stop using it as a medium to spread rumors. Strong actions are needed to be taken on the part of the government to regulated the rising nuisance of fake news and also by us as responsible citizens.We need to check the veracity of the source and form our opinion about the respective news and then forward it to others.Effective and modern rules and regulations must be made by government to curb the rising risk of fake news on social media and other platforms of internet.