KATHMANDU, Feb 28: The Election Information Dissemination and Coordination Center established in the Election Commission (EC) has identified altogether 612 harmful information related to the House of Representatives (HoR) elections scheduled for March 5.
The Information Integrity Promotion Unit under the Centre confirmed such harmful information and sent 545 of them to the Nepal Police to take further actions as per the Electronic Transaction Act, 2063 BS and 121 others to the Central Code of Conduct Monitoring Committee to act as per the Election Code of Conduct 2082 BS, according to the EC.
EC Spokesperson Narayan Prasad Bhattarai shared that 74 of such contents were sent to the Press Council Nepal as they fall under the scope of the Press Council Act 2048 BS and the next one was sent to the Advertisement Board.
EC finds 612 election related harmful information
So far, the Nepal Police took action against 132 of such contents, the Central Code of Conduct Monitoring Committee dealt with 90 such contents and Press Council Nepal booked 32 others.
As per a study carried out by the UNDP, 54 percent of such harmful pieces of information in Nepal were the Deep Fake pictures and videos created by Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Likewise, a meeting of the High Level Election Security Committee has reviewed the security arrangement for the election day, implementation of the election code of conduct during the silence period and other election-related activities.
The meeting also concluded that the security situation so far was satisfactory and has decided to recommend government to ensure effective security arrangements before and during the election day.
Likewise, the EC has directed to impose a ban on the sale and distribution of liquor from seven days ahead of the election to the date of the final result announcement of the polls.
Furthermore, all domestic and international flights on the day of the election have been maintained regular like before.
43 political parties announce election manifestos
Meanwhile, the EC stated that so far 43 political parties have released their election manifestos and informed the EC about the same. The EC had directed the political parties to submit their election manifestos to the EC as per the provision mentioned in Clause 37 of the Election Code of Conduct, 2082 BS.
