In many Indian homes, a 'good morning' forward arrives on WhatsApp long before the morning chai. It contains an image, a video clip, a short note, 'please share', and it often spreads without anyone checking the source.

Across India, millions of people forward messages without a second thought. And the problem isn’t small.

Nearly 71% of Indians now prefer getting news online, with 49% relying on social media, according to the Digital News Report 2024 by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism.

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The study found that 54% consume news from YouTube, 48% from WhatsApp, and 35% from Facebook, making India one of the world’s most social-media-driven news markets.

Conducted by YouGov across 47 countries, covering 95,000 respondents, it highlights how 79% of Indians now use mobile phones for news consumption.

In this hyper-connected landscape, the line between information and misinformation blurs easily. But a quiet experiment in Bihar may offer a powerful solution.

In rural Bihar, a unique community library experimen

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