Imagine this: you’re scrolling through your feed after a breaking news alert. There’s a photo of a city street flooded after a storm, or a bombed building, or a politician shaking hands with someone they’ve never met. It looks real. The lighting is right, the shadows fall correctly, the faces are recognisable. But is it real? In the past, we could lean on our eyes, on the source, on the basic assumption that seeing was believing. That assumption is gone. Deepfakes, generative AI, and cheap editing tools have made it nearly impossible for an ordinary person to tell truth from…

It began, as so many online firestorms do, with a short video clip and a plate of food. The clip showed a long buffet table at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, neatly arranged with what looked like a simple, wholesome vegetarian breakfast: bowls of poha, some breads, chutneys, and a few modest preparations. It was the kind of spread you might see at a government office event or a family function—nothing extravagant, nothing fussy. But because the 18th BRICS Summit was underway, and because world leaders were gathered in the Indian capital, the video quickly took on a life of…