culture. clash. it's a good. post . coming up on the program. candidates in general election.

welcome. it's good to have you with us today is the second phase of forming in india's month long general elections voters are going to the polls to elect a new parliament. now. seeking a second. opposition congress party. the election is the world's biggest with nine hundred million voters in total eligible to vote they have to elect five hundred forty three representatives to the know house of parliament called the. india is one of the biggest markets for social media companies like facebook twitter and whatsapp these platforms have become an additional campaigning ground. to the state of karnataka to meet a candidate hoping social media can be history to

a seat in parliament. ok but if you're going to. be this is be just recently he's been absent of the south indian city of bengal room there for a lawyer and an aspiring member of parliament from the last one out of order over the recall at twenty eight he is the youngest candidate from the ruling the g.o.p. to contest these elections. as temperatures soared above to five degrees on the soft be just because out of his agreed to greet time the college every constituent he's seen each northern week is on a peaceful world. but despite the palpable excitement of supporters and party locals the politician is at best reaching a few hundred overtrain sweltering odds. on twitter just we can reach over one hundred thousand followers in a flash most of our young people to be gone before ones. off by phone today is

a point of. information as well as entertainment so. politically the greatest political tool that we have today is the small little smartphone and not hands. since the last national board smartphone usage in india has tripled to a staggering four fifteen million. election authorities trying to ensure free and fair elections have taken no mr norton was going to catch your eye is the colorful talk behind me which belongs to the beach every candidate who is holding an election rally but knowing that the friend is this is a card to my right which belongs to the election commission of india the election commission who knows me won it does everything a candidate does beat on rallies on advertising but for the first time ever in india i've been a sort of history election commission of india is also watching what is going to be done online on top of media platforms like twitter and facebook that are. policing the world wide web there is no easy job. as the civil society groups worry about

the uncritical consumption of online propaganda by new internet users whose the question of the election commission is doing enough specially to prevent political parties from misusing social media. forms such as facebook which offer a high degree of customization to their advertisers which are political parties based of the personal information off with users in actually reaching them so what you have is the perfect delivery mechanism for political messaging in india which makes it incredibly powerful. but social media can also be problematic they just really has been criticised for all tweets opposing reservations for women and supporting the b g p's hindu nationalist agenda he has even want to gag order on the media to prevent reporting on what he called stephanie tree allegations. but

now a group of friends and supporters is hard at work to boost his online image. the content is kept young and happy to resonate with the just response on a. political cartoons like these in addition help directly establish prime minister narendra modi's support for the young candidate. thorson meet at the must also in show or ethical content that follows official guidelines. social media is a belief ordered what we are really not in control of what happens online until it was no use a bit of what they were goes online from these these are gone that we can go. supporters to exuberance to be but it about privacy and peek nails. but it is what happens online that may well decide this election. and one man who has been watching this online space for some time is pretty he's co-founder and editor of

news this website tracks down and debunks fake news in india but glad you could join us how significant would you say is that all over social media in india's general election this time around. so if you come back to two thousand and fourteen in two thousand and fourteen. there's a section of opposition which had access to smartphones and mobile internet connection that was largely the open publishing deal one to get just east but possible to two thousand and nineteen what we have seen is that internet has changed the fathers connoisseur of this country and even the poorest of the villages there are a few people and the people on the mobile phone and the data connection so and so what has happened is that you know if not for the mobile phones but for the way a word of mouth political propaganda and as a result misinformation which is which is a sickness and buy of the political propaganda reaches the fathers on most of this

country so what is interesting critique is that although there has been increased accessibility of social media content across india it isn't necessarily a good thing. yes it is not necessarily a good thing because you know india you know social media propaganda works differently in different countries india is a country which has gone through vibration which has certain you know sort of certain biases in the people at the right and this you know and what happens is that in the last four or five years as we know a lot of polarization religious polarization political polarization and this is the this is ideal for people who put out this information because it is when people are more and more due to its political issues that they tend to fall more on this information and that is what is happening you know there's a lot of misinformation which targets minorities and which which travels very fast across all the social media mediums and briefly for think if you can have any steps

been taken to tackle this problem. so facebook has partnerships with certain fact checkers but unfortunately that is not enough because at least we you know we're not a part of it we haven't seen any significant difference as far as misinformation is concerned the ality still remains the same the election commission of india announced a certain steps but they were right the projections just at the doorstep of elections and unfortunately that is not good enough time to have any solid effect. thank you very much for speaking to us. thank you. from the world's largest democracy to the third largest were just conducted its elections on wednesday preliminary results from indonesia's elections show incumbent joe cole we dawdle in the lead all the official results on expected for weeks the run up to the vote however over dodo and his challenger probabl will still be on to try to reach out

to conservative islamic voters in the muslim majority nation so how big of an issue was political islam in that election i put that question to indonesia's ambassador to germany. or gross i know. not really because you have to look at the time span of indonesian politics our first election was in one hundred fifty five and we have seventeen political parties related to islam and today the only of four in the parliament and the number has been declining. consistently we don't have islamic ideology in our political systems we have what we call in indonesia nationalistic which is not a very good word in europe let's say it spreads rhetoric political party or secular political party most of them and secondly leaderships we don't have a national figure head in the political party that has referenced this

but then why do you have a problem will be on to falling into line with islamic hardliners why does president who isn't about it as his running mate one of the most popular islamic clerics in the country the reason is the social media. the minority which i am now i see be coming to the mainstream and the majority who are silent. are not you know taking the podium and taking up and taking a stand this is happening in different parts of the world in relation to terrorism for instance within that implies that this is gaining in importance even if it is on social media which is of course a part of vibrant democracies so there's indonesia around the world surely it means that the their agenda is taking center stage well if the ideology is not there they may be noisy but i'm not so sure they will be able to have enough power to

mainstream the idea into national politics just as a final question as somebody from india a friend of really fascinating the member of the election exercise that you will undertook but of books and affirms getting them on board to go to a more islands. actions across three time zones but why did you have to hold five elections all on the same day what was the reason behind that last election there was a lot of horse trading. political election first for the member of political parties election of the members presidential elections so. people want to remove that so now they want to do everything at the same time one day and they're complaining because they don't even exposure well it's not our fault is it. in the. news. for elections next month what's. the outcome.

of the european parliament. with a panel of guests welcome to crunch time. the relationship isn't exactly. what if china beijing's dominant. buying. chinese trade access to its market. partners. more on our website that's enough. that's

a for today we're leaving now with images of the second phase of a giant election that got underway today about. birth. home to use of species. a whole lot more significant. given those are big changes and most start with small steps. tell stories of creative people and innovative projects around the world. like news that contributes good news to green energy solutions and resources should. create an interactive content teaching the next generation of mental to chat show. up

using all channels available to inspire people to take action and more determined to build something here for the next generation. the environment series of global three thousand. in new. shares in jail weighs nosedived the mumbai based carrier is on the brink of bankruptcy its suspends all operations. of the billionaire founder of electronics make up box kong says and told him to run for president of taiwan. getting up close and personal with the new digital leaders of the chinese fashion industry. and no this isn't a horror story farming cockroaches destined for the dinner plate and for use in

medicine. i've been physical and let's to business stock in jet airways plunged more than thirty two percent on thursday the indian carrier had its final flight today following a decision to ground its entire fleet it's failed to secure emergency funding from banks jet airways has collapsed under the weight of heavy debt and rising oil prices which are also the main reasons for a whole host of high profile aviation failures last month iceland's budget carrier wow air which flew transatlantic flight ceased operations leaving travelers stranded similarly in twenty seventeen over one hundred thousand passengers were left stuck abroad when the british airline monarch collapsed and just one month later germany's second largest carrier air berlin went bankrupt.