Haryana used the state’s Family ID database and algorithms to identify genuine beneficiaries of welfare schemes. The database wrongly listed thousands of citizens as dead. Result: They lost their pensions. The Collective’s Tapasya travelled to Haryana to understand how states are using artificial intelligence in an unintelligent way, at a cost to citizens. She writes along with Kumar Sambhav and Divij Joshi. The story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network.

Telangana used an algorithm to build 360-degree profiles of citizens and decide whether they were eligible for state's welfare. The profiles were faulty. As a result, subsidised food was denied to thousands of poor. The state government knew of the blunder, but did not fix it. The Collective’s member Tapasya travelled to the state to understand how states are using artificial intelligence in an unintelligent way, at the cost of citizens. They report along with Kumar Sambhav and Divij Joshi. The story was produced with support from the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network.

Other companies with similar coal contracts did not get the benefits that Adani group did.

During the fresh auctions of coal blocks from the coal-scam era, Modi government allowed RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group’s shell companies to undercut competition while bidding for a coal block in West Bengal. Internally the government admitted to flawed auctions but it did not investigate CAG’s warning of possible collusion in auctions by 10 other private companies to corner large coal reserves and causing loss to the exchequer.

Facebook’s algorithm favours polarising political groups that keep users hooked to newsfeed; BJP fits the bill with its content and gets cheaper ads. If a political party or its proxies have pumped in enough advertisements and campaigned heavily, often with emotionally or politically charged content, to increase “engagement” on Facebook, its advertisements would automatically work out cheaper.

To provide one million views for an ad, Facebook charged all advertisers promoting BJP Rs 39,552 rupees on an average. But for Congress, it charged 52,150 rupees, nearly 32% more. The favourable pricing allows BJP, Facebook's largest political client in India, to reach more voters for less money. The Collective’s findings validate Supreme Court concerns that Facebook’s policies and algorithm pose a threat to electoral politics and democracy.

The Collective’s year-long investigation found that an ecosystem of proxy advertisers is flourishing on Facebook, bypassing election laws, breaking Facebook’s own rules and undercutting the political level-playing field. Surrogate advertisements worth more than 58 million rupees, most of which promoted BJP, denigrated opposition and seeded false narratives, got a whopping 1.3 billion views for a period of 22 months, almost equal to the advertisements officially placed by BJP. They helped double BJP’s visibility without the party having to take responsibility for the content or the expenditure related to their advertisements.

The Jio-funded company, NEWJ, placed advertisements disguised as news. The advertisements triggered anti-Muslim sentiments, attacked BJP’s opponents and critics through distorted information and eulogised Modi government. Though it is illegal to publish such surrogate ads under Indian laws, loopholes in how the Election Commission applies the law give social media platforms a free pass.

Despite prior warnings from its scientists in late February, India’s government did not put in place a testing and surveillance strategy against the Covid-19 outbreak till end March, by which time its own medical experts expressed frustration at the inaction

“Absent any other control measure, lifting lockdown would allow a resurgence of transmission:” India’s top medical-research body told the government in the first week of April. Two weeks into the lockdown, the measures were still not in place

After the Supreme Court restricted the use of Aadhaar, documents show the Telangana government offered to help the Union govt build an intrusive citizen database modelled on the state's Samagram system

Manoranjan Kumar, once a staunch supporter of the controversial National Social Registry, now fears its misuse by the government

Documents obtained under RTI show the govt is planning to use Aadhaar to automatically track every single Indian – from who they marry, address changes, financial status – through the National Social Registry

In the past few years, at least half a dozen states have adopted profiling software to predict the eligibility of citizens for welfare schemes. These algorithms have wrongly declared the alive as dead, the poor as well-off, the disabled as able-bodied, robbing thousands of subsidised food, old-age pension, disability pension, widow pensions, and other welfare benefits for the poor. An investigation into how states are using artificial intelligence in an unintelligent way, at the cost of citizens. With support from the Pulitzer Center’s AI Accountability Network.

The investigation reveals that the government allowed private corporations to bypass the competitive process to corner large coal reserves. It allowed shell companies of a conglomerate to manipulate auctions, and granted an extraordinary favour to another.

After the Bhopal gas tragedy, Union Carbide and its executives were declared absconders. Their properties were ordered to be attached. But, using a web of front companies it funnelled in goods and took out profits for more than a decade.

The move could stop millions of poor children without Aadhaar from having healthy meal, and violates a Supreme Court order that no subsidy or service may be denied to children for want of Aadhaar

TRC investigated more than 5 lakh political advertisements on Facebook and Instagram to assess the influence of Facebook on elections. We found evidence that the world’s biggest social media network systematically undercut political competition by giving unfair advantage to BJP in elections. Read our four-part investigative series here.

From predicting millions of voting choices to deleting inconvenient voters, a world of manipulative possibilities could be opened by the government’s decision—controversially pushed through Parliament—to link Aadhaar, India’s national identity database, and election commission data.

Government documents and internal meeting records show its experts warned that a country-wide lockdown would only delay the pandemic not control it. The government repeatedly ignored experts' warnings and did not put in place key protocols even after a month into the lockdown

The government is setting up building blocks of a project that, in the garb of welfare programs, can lead to tracking of all 1.3 billion citizens from cradle to grave. Every bit of our lives will be linked, recorded and monitored