Quick Take | Stop the rumour mill
An old adage has come back to haunt us—along with the posters it generated. We cannot be certain who first said, “Truth is the first casualty of war.” Greek playwright Aeschylus is given credit for offering divine justification for deception during wartime, but he did not quite frame it the way we know it today. It had been paraphrased in so many ways by the Second World War that both warring alliances put up posters warning against rumours. Right now, West Asian governments are in a similar overdrive, deeply worried about citizens drawing the wrong conclusions from social media posts. Indians would also do well to trust official channels for information about the conflict and not burden their dear ones among the West Asian diaspora with alarmist messages.