The Fact-Checking Network (FCN) is an initiative by the Misinformation Combat Alliance (MCA) to develop self-governing standards and best practices for fact-checking organisations in India, enabling them to become trusted partners in the fight against the weaponisation of misinformation and disinformation.
What is Fact-Checking Network?
What is the role of FCN?
Who are the FCN
Board Members?
Justice Pradeep Nandrajog
Former Chief Justice of the Bombay HC and Rajasthan HC; Judge, Delhi HC
Justice Pradeep Nandrajog is a distinguished jurist with an extensive career in law and the judiciary. He practiced as an advocate from 1981 to 2002, specializing in commercial suits and arbitration, particularly in turnkey projects. He served as a Judge of the Delhi High Court (2002–2017), Chief Justice of the Rajasthan High Court (2017–2019), and Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court (2019–2020). Over his judicial tenure, he authored nearly 1,500 judgments in civil and commercial law and presided over 300 criminal appeals. Since 2020, he has been actively engaged as an arbitrator and legal consultant.
The FCN Board is an independent, self-regulatory body established by the MCA. It oversees compliance with the MCA Code of Principles through a robust verification system and addresses violations via a transparent complaints and review process. The Board consists of one chairperson and six members.
FCN Chairperson
FCN Members
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Amrita Choudhary
CCOAI Head, Internet Governance Expert
Amrita is a leader in digital and internet governance policy, focusing on capacity building, outreach, and research. She is the Director of CCAOI and serves as President of ISOC Delhi, Chair of AprIGF, APRALO, and IGFSA. A founding member of inSIG, she supports India IGF and Youth India IGF. Previously, she was a UN IGF MAG member and now coordinates the MAG Working Group on IGF Strategy and the Policy Network on AI. Amrita plays a key role in shaping internet governance in India and the Asia-Pacific region.
Prof Faizan Mustafa
Vice-Chancellor, Chanakya National Law University, Former Vice-Chancellor of NALSAR
Prof. Faizan Mustafa is a constitutional law expert and is presently working as Vice-Chancellor of Chanakya National Law University, Patna. He served as Vice Chancellor of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad for ten years. He is the Founder Vice-Chancellor of National Law University, Orissa. He is the Advisor to National Law School & Judicial Academy, Assam. He is known for his institution building abilities and democratic leadership. He is also visiting faculty to several reputed institutions in India and abroad. He was the Founder Director of KIIT Law School, Bhubaneshwar. Prior to that he was the Dean, Faculty of Law, Aligarh Muslim University and Registrar, Aligarh Muslim University. He was the recipient of both Commonwealth Scholarship as well as Fulbright Fellowship. He was conferred the SAARC’s Best Law Teacher Award in 2014. He was the President and Vice-President of the prestigious Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (SICI) which was incorporated in Canada in 1968 and is bi-national organization of Canadian and Indian governments. He has also served as the Vice- President and President of Consortium of National Law Universities. He has written eight books and contributed more than 400 articles. Supreme Court of India has also quoted him number of times. In the Sabarimala Judgement, his research paper was quoted by the Supreme Court. His articles have also been quoted in several other countries. He is also invited by the Parliament Standing Committees to present his views on the new Bills. He was also one of the contributor to famous Encyclopaedia of Legal History published by the Oxford University Press, United States of America. He regularly writes in the leading newspapers and magazines on the current legal issues. He also runs popular YouTube Channel namely Legal Awareness web Series which has about 7.27 lakh subscribers and over 5crore views.
Madhavi Diwan
Senior Advocate, Former ASG
​Madhavi Goradia Divan is a Senior Advocate practicing in the Supreme Court of India. Her area of practice spans over commercial law and constitutional law. She has argued cases on a range of commercial law subjects including insolvency and bankruptcy, competition law and arbitration.
Maya Sharma
Journalist, Former NDTV South Bureau Chief
Maya Sharma is an independent journalist based in Bengaluru. She was part of the very first batch of trained television journalists in India and was also a Fulbright Scholar at Syracuse University, New York. Maya worked full time for over 30 years in TV news, most of it with NDTV, as a reporter, anchor and documentary film maker. A big part of her work has been political reporting and since 1989, she has covered every general election in India and every state election in Karnataka. Other highlights include the inauguration of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, the life and crimes of Veerappan, and the 2004 tsunami. She has won several awards from her work including Karnataka’s Rajyotsava Award. Maya contributes to TV, radio, print and online news. She loves teaching and interacting with students, particularly future journalists.
Prof Usha Raman
Professor, University of Hyderabad
Usha Raman is a professor of media studies at the University of Hyderabad, with research and teaching interests spanning digital culture, journalism pedagogy, feminist media studies, children's media lives, and science and health communication.
Venkatesh Hariharan
Former Google Public Policy Head, Advisor at FOSS United,Open Source Advocate
Venkatesh Hariharan is the India representative for the Open Invention Network, an organization that protects the open source community from patent litigation. He set up the Data Governance Network, a network of think-tanks, as Senior Fellow of the IDFC Institute before taking on his current role. Prior to that, he was Director Fintech for the Indian Software Product Industry Round Table (iSPIRT), that built Public Digital Infrastructure like IndiaStack (www.indiastack.org). In this role, he helped some of India’s largest banks adopt India Stack, and its components like eKYC and the Unified Payment Interface. He is also a member of the Governing Board of the Software Freedom Law Center, a law firm that represents the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) communities. Hariharan has served as Head of Public Policy and Government Affairs with Google, and as Corporate Affairs Director for Red Hat in the Asia-Pacific region. He has worked on key policy issues like Internet regulations, open standards, software patents, open source in government, and Indian language computing. He is a former Executive Editor of Express Computer and the first Indian to be selected for the prestigious Knight Science Journalism Fellowship (1998-99) at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hariharan has delivered talks on technology and policy issues at World Foresight Forum, Open World Forum and at leading academic institutions like MIT, IIT Bombay, IIT Guwahati, IIIT-Bangalore, IIM Bangalore and many others. Hariharan is interested in the intersection of technology, society and policy, with a specific focus on democratizing access to knowledge.
Jatin Gandhi
Member, Governing Council, MCA
Jatin Gandhi is an Executive Editor at Jagran New Media and heads Vishvas News, the IFCN-signatory fact-checking wing of the company. With over 27 years of experience across newspapers, magazines, TV, and digital media, he has worked with India's leading media companies, including the Jagran Group, Times Group, India Today, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Indian Express, Star News, and NDTV. He is a Chevening Fellow (2016-17) and a Knight International Journalism Fellow (2018-19), Internews Health Misinformation Fellow (2023). He is a post-graduate in Journalism and Law. Jatin also leads workshops on fact-checking, media literacy, and trauma awareness for various professional groups, including journalists, military personnel, and judicial officers.