this is. coming up on the program. candidates in india general election. at the cost of the truth. very. exclusive.

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 and prime minister narendra modi from the ruling hindu nationalist b j p is seeking a second his main challenger is leader of the 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 locus of india is one of the biggest markets for social media companies like facebook and whatsapp these platforms have become an additional campaigning ground the correspondent just fall to the state of karnataka to meet a candidate hoping social media can be his trump card to

a seat in parliament. oh but if you're going to fight me this has to be just we suited for that student of the south indian city of bengal who never a lawyer and an aspiring member of parliament for joining us here but out of order but there are people 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 three goes out of his read to greet and the knowledge to every constituent t.c. in each northern week is an appeal for words. 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 go beyond two forms of. telephone today are

mobile phone today is a point of. information as bad as entertainment so our political with the greatest political to do that we have today is the small loss mark for not hands. since the last national board smartphone usage in india has tripled to a stack of ng for fifteen million. election authorities trying to ensure free and fair elections have taken no an extraordinary was going to catch your eye is the colorful truck behind me which belongs to believe it be candidate who is holding an election rally but no lifting with a friend is this very far to my right which belongs to the election commission of india the election commission close me monaco's everything can be done be it on daddy's own advertising but for the first time in getting a job in history the election commission of india is also watching what is going to be done online on forces media platforms like twitter and facebook. 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 off the personal information off with users in actually reaching them so what you have is the perfect delivery mccown is on 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 j 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 political cartoons like these in addition help directly establish prime minister narendra modi's support for the young candidate. the social media team must also in show are ethical content that follows official guidelines. social media as it will afford what we are really not in control of what happens online itself it was our user base of what they were goes online from this music on that we can go. supporters meanwhile do exuberance to be what 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 of social media in india's general election this time rob 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 just cities but fosco to two thousand and nineteen what we have seen is that internet has changed the foggiest honest 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 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 a partition which has certain you know sort of certain biases in the people at right and this you know and what happens is that in the last four or five years there's been a lot of polarization religious moderation political polarization and this is the this is ideal for people who put out this information because it is when people are more in what 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 factions 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 private actions 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 girl said no. 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 davey only have four in the parliament and the number has been declining. consistently we don't have any ideology in our political systems we have what we call in the nationalistic which is not very good work 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 probably gone to forming an alliance with islamic hardliners why does president. isn't about. picks as his running mate one of the most popular islamic clerics in the country the reason is the social media. the minority which i see be coming to the mainstream and the majority who is silent. are not you know taking the podium and taking up into the 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 there they may be easy 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 memo to election exercise that you will undertook but of books as an end of getting them on board to go to remote 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. the last election there were a lot of horse trading. political election first for the member of political parties election religiously members presidential elections so. people want to remove that so now they want to do everything at the same time one day and blaming it because they don't mean it you know if exposure. is if it is. in the nation's ambassador to germany. and coming up.

for elections next month what's. the outcome. of the european parliament. with a panel of guests welcome to crunch time. the. trading partner. with the same. relationship isn't exactly. what if china is beijing's dominant. buying. chinese trade access to its market. partners. and why. be sure not to miss out more on our website that's did have

a lot going for with flash. on facebook as well. that's of the day we need you now with images of the second phase of india's giant elections that got underway today he's going to start over. and he creates a sex phone operator to work her masters thesis on the potato from the brain to create. not a turn on well it's more residuals from their. truest. street. what's the connection between bread flour and the european union he knows he'll contest correspondent alan baker can stretch this

combined with the rules set by the. cots. stepping recipes for success strategy that make a difference. baking bread on d w. shares in jail weighs nosedived the mumbai based carrier is on the brink of bankruptcy in suspense of all operations. the billionaire founder of electronics maker foxconn 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. cockroaches destined for the dinner plate and to use it medicine.

let's do business stock in jet airways plunged more than thirty two percent on thursday the indian carrier had its final flight today following its decision to ground its entire fleet its 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 flights 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.