India blocks Pakistan’s PM YouTube channel 

Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s official YouTube channel has been blocked in India.

The ban comes on top of the Indian government banning 16 high-profile Pakistani Youtube channels (including several of the larger news media outlets such as Dawn, Samaa TV, ARY News, Geo News, and Bol News), with total subscribers of over 63 million. 

The rationale for this ban, according to YouTube, was that the channels were propagating “provocative, communally sensitive content and misinformation about India and its security forces.”

The Ministry of Home Affairs recommendations that prompted the crackdown, pointed to individual journalists, such as Irshad Bhatti, Asma Shirazi, Umar Cheema and Muneeb Farooq, as targets.

India, meanwhile, also sent a warning to the BBC over what it termed as ‘biased reporting’ of the Pahalgam terror incident, objecting to the BBC’s use of the word ‘militants’ to describe the terrorists. 

The Ministry of External Affairs conveyed its views to BBC India head Jackie Martin formally.

India has cancelled visas for a number of Pakistan nationals, followed by a reported 500 plus Pakistan nationals, including diplomats, departing the country using the Attari-Wagah border. 

Indian authorities have also escalated efforts to eliminate terror infrastructure in Jammu and Kashmir, demolishing homes linked to militants and arresting suspected collaborators.