New Delhi : India on Tuesday severely condemned attempts being made by the Chinese vloggers to portray impoverished neighbourhoods in Bangladesh’s capital Dhaka as New Delhi through misleading content, saying such efforts to peddle false narratives undermine the credibility of those undertaking and backing them. Addressing a bi-weekly press briefing in New Delhi, Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal urged the authorities concerned to take action against those involved.

“We have seen media reports in this regard. Such efforts to present a distorted picture of any country are unfortunate. Insofar as efforts to buy foreign elements to portray Dhaka as Delhi are concerned, the peddling of false narratives only undermines the credibility of those who are undertaking such actions and those who are behind them. And we would urge the authorities concerned to take action against such people,” he said.

The remarks came amid reports that over 150 Chinese nationals have been filming and livestreaming from economically disadvantaged neighbourhoods of Dhaka, falsely depicting them as parts of New Delhi.

While recording footage from these locations, they made disparaging comments about India’s living standards, sanitation, food habits, and poverty.

The misleading portrayal has sparked concerns over the deliberate distortion of geographical locations and the possible use of deceptive online content to create negative perceptions about India among international audiences.

The incident underscored the growing threat posed by misinformation and manipulated content on social media, where sensationalised posts can spread widely before their authenticity is established.

The activities have reportedly been taking place in Dhaka’s Tekpara and Uttara areas for several months, with streamers remaining active from early morning until late at night.

One Chinese woman identified as ‘Mianmian’, who claimed to be from China’s Sichuan province, livestreamed from beside a canal in Uttara Sector 12 of Dhaka on November 1. She reportedly presented the area to her online audience as New Delhi and described the residential buildings and surrounding areas as dirty, underdeveloped, and unhygienic.

“This is New Delhi. Their homes are extremely dirty. There isn’t even a fan inside the tin-roofed houses. This place is quite underdeveloped, dirty and unhygienic, and the law-and-order situation is poor,” leading Bangladeshi daily ‘Prothom Alo’ quoted her as saying.

In another instance, a Chinese national was seen live streaming from tea stalls in the Tekpara locality of Dhaka, making the offensive remarks that the tea consumed by locals was made using “cow urine”.

“Look, they are drinking tea. Do you know what kind of tea this is? This is cow urine tea. They drink cow urine tea,” Prothom Alo quoted him as saying.

The footage also contained derogatory comments on the residents’ lifestyles, with repeated references to poor hygiene, lack of sanitation, and substandard living conditions.

These are not isolated incidents, as reports of Chinese content creators recording videos in Dhaka’s underprivileged neighbourhoods have been emerging since May 2026.

The recurring pattern of Chinese content creators repeatedly filming in the same low-income neighbourhoods, along with allegations of geographical misrepresentation and intrusive filming, raises concerns about attempts to undermine India’s image internationally.

These recent developments point to a coordinated anti-India campaign. The issue is not merely the recording of impoverished neighbourhoods, but the calculated misrepresentation of locations in another country as parts of India, coupled with disparaging remarks intended to influence how international audiences perceive Indian society.

Ranchi : The Jharkhand High Court has observed that a married woman’s right to pursue higher education and a career is her inherent right and not a privilege granted by her husband. The court said that describing contrary views of a woman’s desire to study or work as “ambition” or “over-ambition” reflects a discriminatory mindset and is rooted in gender bias. A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice M.S. Sonak and Justice Manoj Prasad made the observations while allowing a matrimonial appeal filed by a woman from Jamshedpur seeking divorce on grounds of mental and physical cruelty.

The Bench set aside a March 16, 2019 order of the Family Court in Jamshedpur, which had dismissed her divorce petition. The High Court examined evidence presented by the wife during the appeal proceedings. She had testified before the Family Court and had corroborated the allegations by statements of her father, Alakh Ram, and neighbour, Pankaj Kumar Singh. The court noted that the husband neither produced any witness in his defence nor cross-examined the wife and her witnesses properly.

The Bench further observed that although the husband had denied the allegations in his written statement, his response was vague and general. Referring to provisions under Order VIII Rules 3, 4 and 5 of the Civil Procedure Code (CPC), the court said allegations must be specifically and categorically denied, and a blanket denial is legally insufficient. The court held that the Family Court had erred in disregarding the wife’s testimony. It also disagreed with the lower court’s observation that the wife’s education and employment were the result of the husband’s generosity and support. The High Court said that when a husband continues his education or career after marriage, it is considered normal, and the same standard must apply to a wife. Judicial decisions, it added, cannot be based on gender stereotypes. Setting aside the Family Court order, the High Court granted the woman a decree of divorce.

New Delhi : Congress leader Sonia Gandhi and her husband, former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, suffered a major heartbreak and a deeply personal tragedy soon after marriage, as their newborn child passed away hours after birth. Sonia, in her autobiography titled ‘Belonging: A Journey of Love’, shares that the environment of joy and happiness that prevailed in the Gandhi household over her pregnancy turned sombre and macabre as she and Rajiv lost their first child, despite the newborn appearing healthy. She also recounts how her mother-in-law and former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi cut short her official tours and took time out to console and comfort the grieving young parents. According to the memoir, Sonia gave birth to a baby boy on January 18, 1969, and it was a preterm delivery. This happened about a year before Rahul Gandhi’s birth in 1970.

“I heard the baby’s first cry as he was placed in the incubator. Later Rajiv took me to see him, a tiny, perfectly formed boy, with thick, black hair and long, slim fingers,” Media quoted her saying in the memoir. “We fell in love with him immediately,” she adds. Hours later, they were told by the doctors that their child was no more. Penning down the excruciating experience, she says that the shock and fear of losing their first child was utterly difficult for both of them to swallow. “No, it was not possible! Why, why, I kept asking. Both of us were shocked and heartbroken,” she writes. Rajiv Gandhi also grieved and broke down over the child’s loss and cried along with her despite his “stiff upper lip” upbringing. She further recalls Indira Gandhi truncating her official tours and rushing back to the hospital to comfort and help them overcome the irreparable loss.

“She embraced us, her eyes red and swollen,” she says, recounting how the former Prime Minister sat with them. The Congress leader also shares the ‘anguished moments’ of bidding goodbye to their deceased child and how she refused the proposal of disposing of the body in a river, as was the traditional practice prevalent then. According to the memoir, the prospect of laying the infant’s body to rest was debated at home multiple times, and finally it was decided that the child be buried at Feroze Gandhi’s farm in South Delhi’s Mehrauli. “It was a painful and agonising option, but there was no other way,” she further says in the memoir and also adds that for a long time, she and Rajiv would pause and place a flower each time near the bougainvillaea bush, where the child was buried.