fact-checking 12

Rohit Saran looked at the Statoistics cards my AI agents are generating for The Times of India, and asked about a small button under each one. In the list of Statoistics that you had put, I saw there’s a button called ‘Verify.’ What was that meant to be or will do in future? That verify button explains the claim, mentions the sources, and shows how to check the claim. One card said “9 in 10 Indians want a family doctor and barely 1 in 35 has one”. The button breaks that down: ...

I Paid a Bribe (2010) Founded by: Janaagraha (co-founded by Swati Ramanathan & Ramesh Ramanathan) (Tracxn) Status: Ongoing as a Janaagraha initiative (current activity of the specific site varies by city/campaign; Janaagraha remains active) (janaagraha.org) Offering: Civic reporting + advocacy platform; sustained via donations/grants through Janaagraha (janaagraha.org) Financials: Janaagraha’s audited statement shows total income ₹243.46M (₹24.35 cr) for FY ending Mar 31, 2024 (janaagraha.org); FCRA statement shows donation income ₹174.38M (FY ending Mar 31, 2024) (janaagraha.org) (org-level, not IPaB-only) DataMeet (2011) Founded by: Thejesh GN and S Anand (Data{Meet}) Status: Active community (volunteer-led) (Data{Meet}) Offering: Community meetups, open-data projects; typically volunteer / partner-supported (Data{Meet}) Financials: No standardized public financial reporting (community initiative) (Data{Meet}) IndiaSpend / Spending & Policy Research Foundation (2011) Founded by: Govindraj Ethiraj (managing trustee; SPRF set up with an initial ₹10,000 investment per Oxford Academic chapter) (OUP Academic) Status: Active data journalism org (Indiaspend) Offering: Non-profit model: donations/grants; acknowledges philanthropic support (e.g., IPSMF support noted) (Indiaspend) Financials: Public exact revenues aren’t consistently published on a single page; verified datapoint: started with ₹10,000 investment (OUP Academic) SocialCops (2012) Founded by: Prukalpa Sankar and Varun Banka. (Forbes India) Status: No longer operating as the original “projects” startup; continued as a “data for social good community” while the team shifted focus to Atlan. (Forbes India) Offering: Earlier: data-intelligence projects + internal tools; later opened up tools for data teams and pointed users to Atlan. (Forbes India) Financials: Tracxn lists total funding of $320K (seed, Jul 30, 2014). (Tracxn) FactChecker.in (2014) (product under IndiaSpend) Founded by: IndiaSpend/SPRF initiative (PRS Legislative Research) Status: Active (as a fact-checking initiative associated with IndiaSpend) (PRS Legislative Research) Offering: Sustained via IndiaSpend’s non-profit funding base (Indiaspend) Financials: No separate public financials (bundled into parent org) (Indiaspend) How India Lives (2014) Founded by: Avinash Singh, N S Ramnath, John Samuel Raja Duraipandy (Tracxn profile); HIL’s own team page also lists Avinash Singh + Avinash Celestine as “Co-founder”. (Tracxn) Status: Active (site is live; products like “Gram” and “Sales Pulse” are being offered). (howindialives.com) Offering: Public-data products (e.g., Gram, Sales Pulse) + consulting/services around identifying/extracting/analyzing/visualising public data. (howindialives.com) Financials: Tracxn lists annual revenue of ₹1.92 Cr (as on Mar 31, 2022); Sales Pulse lists pricing at ₹35,400/quarter and ₹1,18,000/year (incl. taxes). (Tracxn) Data.gov.in / OGD Platform India (launched 2012) Founded by: Government of India (built/hosted by NIC, MeitY) (Data.gov.in) Status: Active (Wikipedia) Offering: Public digital infrastructure (tax-funded) (Data.gov.in) Financials: Not a commercial venture; budgeted via government programmes (no single “revenue” number) (Data.gov.in) CMIE – Consumer Pyramids Household Survey (CPHS) (running since 2014) Founded by: CMIE (The India Forum) Status: Active dataset used widely in research (The India Forum) Offering: Subscription access to microdata for institutions/researchers (The India Forum) Financials: One public datapoint on pricing: “membership subscription fee … $25,000 for one year” (example cited) (The India Forum) (CMIE’s own full financials may not be openly published like listed companies) Thurro (2016) Founded by: Karthik Ranganathan, Mrinalini Rao, Akhilesh Tilotia. (Thurro) Status: Active. (Thurro) Offering: Data/alternative-data driven “financial intelligence” (research, notebooks/analyses, data products). (Thurro) Financials: Tracxn lists annual revenue of ₹95.7L (as on Mar 31, 2024) and $0 funding. (Tracxn) Alt News (Feb 2017) Founded by: Pratik Sinha, Mohammed Zubair. (Wikipedia) Status: Active. (Wikipedia) Offering: Non-profit fact-checking; runs under Pravda Media Foundation (Section 8 company); funded via donations + grants. (Alt News) Financials: Alt News discloses at least ₹3,00,000 received in FY2017–18 from Zindabad Trust; Tracxn lists Pravda Media Foundation revenue ~₹2.18 Cr (FY ending Mar 31, 2025) (entity operating Alt News). (Alt News) OpenCity (2017) Founded by: A programme of the Oorvani Foundation, in collaboration with DataMeet. (re3data.org) Status: Active (Urban Data Portal continues to host datasets). (re3data.org) Offering: Open urban data portal consolidating city datasets for planners/researchers/citizens; civic-tech transparency + evidence-based governance use. (re3data.org) Financials: No venture-level financials publicly stated in the repository description; best understood as a nonprofit programme/civic-tech initiative. (re3data.org) SatSure (Sep 2017) Founded by: Prateep Basu, Rashmit Singh Sukhmani, Abhishek Raju (core team/founders listed in profile coverage). (YourStory.com) Status: Active. (YourStory.com) Offering: Geospatial / satellite-data analytics for agriculture, infrastructure, climate-risk and decisioning. (YourStory.com) Financials: Tracxn lists $27.7M total funding and (for the Indian legal entity) ₹9.65 Cr revenue (FY ending Mar 31, 2024). (Tracxn) Data Sutram (2018) Founded by: Rajit Bhattacharya, Aisik Paul, Ankit Das. (datasutram.com) Status: Active. (YourStory.com) Offering: AI-driven external-data intelligence for fraud/risk/compliance (RegTech), used by banks/NBFCs/fintechs. (YourStory.com) Financials: Raised $9M Series A (May 22, 2025) (mix of primary/secondary). Valuation is not disclosed publicly (some outlets report an estimated range, but the company hasn’t confirmed it). (YourStory.com) health-check.in (Apr 2019) Founded by: Launched by IndiaSpend (as a dedicated public-health reporting resource). (Indiaspend) Status: Active. (Indiaspend) Offering: Health data journalism + analysis on public health, nutrition, lifestyle diseases, health finance & governance. (HealthCheck) Financials: No separate public financials for the vertical; it’s sustained as part of IndiaSpend’s broader newsroom model. (Indiaspend) National Data & Analytics Platform – NDAP (launched May 13, 2022) Founded by: NITI Aayog (Press Information Bureau) Status: Active (National Data and Analytics Platform) Offering: Public data access + analytics/visualization tools (tax-funded) (Press Information Bureau) Financials: Not a commercial venture; no revenue (government platform) (Press Information Bureau) Factly (2014–2016) Founded by: Founded/led by Rakesh Dubbudu (origin story: started as a blog in 2014; later became Factly; fact-checking arm recognised as launched in early 2016) (factlylabs.com) Status: Active fact-checking + data stories (ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org) Offering: Mix of fact-checking, data journalism, and partnerships; IFCN listing describes the organisation and its work (ifcncodeofprinciples.poynter.org) Financials: Precise revenues aren’t reliably public in one canonical place; third-party “revenue estimate” sites are inconsistent, so I’m not treating them as verified financials (FACTLY) BOOM (BoomLive) (2014; current avatar since 2016) Founded by: Operated by Outcue Media Pvt Ltd; BOOM describes itself as India’s first fact-checking initiative (current avatar since Nov 2016) (BOOM) Status: Active (BOOM) Offering: BOOM says income is from social platforms, contract work, and training; also focuses on fact-checking & media literacy (BOOM) Financials: Tracxn reports Outcue Media revenue ₹12.2Cr for FY ending Mar 31, 2024 (Tracxn) (company-level) Alt News (Pravda Media Foundation, 2017) Founded by: Directors include Pratik Sinha and Mohammed Zubair (Pravda Media Foundation) (Tofler) Status: Active (Tofler) Offering: Donation-funded non-profit (Moneycontrol describes it as funded primarily by donations) (Moneycontrol) Financials: Financials vary by source: Tofler lists operating revenue “under ₹1 cr” for FY ending Mar 31, 2023 (Tofler); Tracxn reports ₹2.18Cr revenue for FY ending Mar 31, 2025 (Tracxn) CivicDataLab (2018) Founded by: Co-founders Gaurav Godhwani and Deepthi Chand Alagandula (civicdatalab.in) Status: Active (company status shown as active in corporate registries) (ZaubaCorp) Offering: Public-good data/tech/design work; typically sustained via grants, partnerships, and contracted projects (data.org) Financials: Tracxn reports revenue ~₹3.9Cr for FY ending Mar 31, 2025 (Tracxn) (company-level) FactIQ (2024). Focus on US economy but has “honorary membership” on this list Founded by: Rishabh Srivastava and Medha Basu Status: Active (FactIQ) YC-backed startup Offering: B2B data product (US “facts / signals” for teams; details vary by pitch) Financials: No public revenue disclosed. YC profile Data For India (Apr 2024) Founded by: Rukmini S Status: Active Offering: Free public data + insights + charts; sustainability model not clearly specified on the launch post Financials: No public financials disclosed on the launch post/site pages referenced How India Lives (2014) Founded by: Avinash Singh, N S Ramnath, John Samuel Raja Duraipandy (Tracxn profile); HIL’s own team page also lists Avinash Singh + Avinash Celestine as “Co-founder”. (Tracxn) Status: Active (site is live; products like “Gram” and “Sales Pulse” are being offered). (howindialives.com) Offering: Public-data products (e.g., Gram, Sales Pulse) + consulting/services around identifying/extracting/analyzing/visualising public data. (howindialives.com) Financials: Tracxn lists annual revenue of ₹1.92 Cr (as on Mar 31, 2022); Sales Pulse lists pricing at ₹35,400/quarter and ₹1,18,000/year (incl. taxes). (Tracxn) Thurro (2016) Founded by: Karthik Ranganathan, Mrinalini Rao, Akhilesh Tilotia. (Thurro) Status: Active. (Thurro) Offering: Data/alternative-data driven “financial intelligence” (research, notebooks/analyses, data products). (Thurro) Financials: Tracxn lists annual revenue of ₹95.7L (as on Mar 31, 2024) and $0 funding. (Tracxn) SocialCops (2012) Founded by: Prukalpa Sankar and Varun Banka. (Forbes India) Status: No longer operating as the original “projects” startup; continued as a “data for social good community” while the team shifted focus to Atlan. (Forbes India) Offering: Earlier: data-intelligence projects + internal tools; later opened up tools for data teams and pointed users to Atlan. (Forbes India) Financials: Tracxn lists total funding of $320K (seed, Jul 30, 2014). (Tracxn) Alt News (Feb 2017) Founded by: Pratik Sinha, Mohammed Zubair. (Wikipedia) Status: Active. (Wikipedia) Offering: Non-profit fact-checking; runs under Pravda Media Foundation (Section 8 company); funded via donations + grants. (Alt News) Financials: Alt News discloses at least ₹3,00,000 received in FY2017–18 from Zindabad Trust; Tracxn lists Pravda Media Foundation revenue ~₹2.18 Cr (FY ending Mar 31, 2025) (entity operating Alt News). (Alt News) OpenCity (2017) Founded by: A programme of the Oorvani Foundation, in collaboration with DataMeet. (re3data.org) Status: Active (Urban Data Portal continues to host datasets). (re3data.org) Offering: Open urban data portal consolidating city datasets for planners/researchers/citizens; civic-tech transparency + evidence-based governance use. (re3data.org) Financials: No venture-level financials publicly stated in the repository description; best understood as a nonprofit programme/civic-tech initiative. (re3data.org) SatSure (Sep 2017) Founded by: Prateep Basu, Rashmit Singh Sukhmani, Abhishek Raju (core team/founders listed in profile coverage). (YourStory.com) Status: Active. (YourStory.com) Offering: Geospatial / satellite-data analytics for agriculture, infrastructure, climate-risk and decisioning. (YourStory.com) Financials: Tracxn lists $27.7M total funding and (for the Indian legal entity) ₹9.65 Cr revenue (FY ending Mar 31, 2024). (Tracxn) Data Sutram (2018) Founded by: Rajit Bhattacharya, Aisik Paul, Ankit Das. (datasutram.com) Status: Active. (YourStory.com) Offering: AI-driven external-data intelligence for fraud/risk/compliance (RegTech), used by banks/NBFCs/fintechs. (YourStory.com) Financials: Raised $9M Series A (May 22, 2025) (mix of primary/secondary). Valuation is not disclosed publicly (some outlets report an estimated range, but the company hasn’t confirmed it). (YourStory.com) health-check.in (Apr 2019) Founded by: Launched by IndiaSpend (as a dedicated public-health reporting resource). (Indiaspend) Status: Active. (Indiaspend) Offering: Health data journalism + analysis on public health, nutrition, lifestyle diseases, health finance & governance. (HealthCheck) Financials: No separate public financials for the vertical; it’s sustained as part of IndiaSpend’s broader newsroom model. (Indiaspend)

Using LLMs to find errors is fairly hallucination-proof. If they mess up, it’s just wasted effort. If they don’t, they’ve uncovered a major problem! Varun fact-checked Themes in Indian History, the official NCERT Class 12 textbook. Page-by-page, he asked Gemini to: Extract each claim. E.g. “Clay was locally available to the Harappans” on page 12. Search online for the claim. E.g. ASI site description and by Encyclopedia Britannica. Fact-check each claim. E.g. “Clay was locally available to the Harappans” is confirmed by both sources. Here is his analysis and verifier code. ...

I’m using AI to read books by: Summarizing. This tells me what the books is about, the key points it makes and the main takeaways. It also helps me decide if I want to dig deeper. Fact-checking. I can find mistakes, alternate perspectives, and biases. That’s a huge win! Re-authoring. I can write it in the style of Malcolm Gladwell, Randall Munroe, Richard Feynman, or anyone else I like. Makes dense prose much more enjoyable. So far, I’ve applied this at different levels - and I’m sure there are more possibilities: ...

I have this nagging feeling (maybe you do too?) that it’s cheating and I’m not really learning if it’s so easy. The same voice makes me feel guilty when using coding agents to code or ChatGPT in meetings. I’m telling that voice to relax. I upload books to Claude and ask it to “Comprehensively and engagingly summarize and fact-check, writing in Malcolm Gladwell’s style, the book …”. I can read it in an hour instead of twelve. Four bullet points instead of forty. With (this surprised me) roughly the same number of insights I actually do something with. ...

Distill core concepts from a topic. Version 2, 31 Mar 2026 I want to become quickly effective at [SPECIFIC TASK]. Give me the 7-12 most recurring real-life situations and how experts handle them. For each, include: 1. Trigger: "when I see ..." 2. Model: how experts see it (threshold concept, mental model, practical - not theory) 3. Traps: what it helps me avoid 4. Action: what to do/decide Use a real, concrete example for each. Then add two things: - Look-alikes: 2-3 pairs of similar situations that need opposite treatment, and how to distinguish them. - What comes only from experience - so I know the limits. Version 1 What are the core concepts, i.e. top non-intuitive well-established lessons/principles, of ... - Source comprehensively from authoritative sources. - Pick the 10 that are mentioned repeatedly, have the highest applicability and usefulness, while being non-obvious. - Fact-check each concept. Include references to authoritative sources. - Write them as bullet points. Explain each concept in a few simple sentences that are easy to understand intuitively.

Misconceptions spread by textbooks. This site lists the facts, contrary to what most textbooks say about them. Facts: The ocean is blue because water is a blue substance. Not because it reflects the blue sky. The sky is blue because air is blue. Clouds actually remain aloft because they are warm inside.

Snopes is soon to be on TV.

A portal of urban legends. The bunk stops here.

On second thoughts, some rumours are true.

No updates till the weekend. I’m in Bangalore. In the meantime, remember not to trust anything that’s forwarded to you. It’s likely to be an urban legend.

The next stop was Inverness. I didn’t know Inverness had any history to it. It wasn’t till we got there that I learnt that the Inverness castle was where Macbeth (of Shakespearean fame) ruled from. In fact, it turns out that Macbeth was a really nice king. There was this barbarian who fought him, lost, and turned to the English for help – who of course were delighted, and they killed Macbeth. This barbarian stupidly signed a document saying that Scotland would pay tributes to England, and that’s been the source of all the trouble. ...