THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The controversial IAS officer Sriram Venkitaraman, who has been accused of ramming her friend’s car into a journalist, leading to his death, has been nominated to the Public Relation Department’s Fact Check division which keep a check on fake news.
His name has been recommended by the health department. Sreeram, who had been under suspension after the incident which led to the death of journalist K M Bhasheer, was taken back into service last March. He was assigned with the duty in War Room for coordinating Covid-related activities.
Though initially, government won accolades for reining in the Coronavirus, later the situation went out of control even in the capital city. And strangely enough, the IAS officer, who is helming the Covid prevention activities, is going to be entrusted with the new job in the Fact Check Division a time the Covid is spreading like anything .
Incidentally, Sreeram had not appeared in the court despite receiving court notice three times in the car accident case.
The fact check division was formed in the PRD at the behest of the chief minister in order to keep a watch on fake news that came out during Covid restriction period. But eventually, this division started inferring in the non-Covid news and in the news reports of main stream media.
The aim was to brand news against government as fake. But after it goofed up while trying to depict the news of a main media group as fake, it started concentrating only on social media news
The division headed by PRD Secretary included top officers in police, IT and revenue departments. The government also proposed to nominate two media editors during the formation of the division.
Other members in the division are Cyber Security Experts, Fact Checking Experts, officials from Cyberdom and forensic departments and a C-DIT web department official.