Reuters Takes USAID Money, Attacks India
India's reputation as a rising tech powerhouse and vital U.S. ally against China's dominance is under siege. The country has been smeared as a cybercrime hub, with the U.S.-based news agency Reuters at the center of the scandal.
Reuters has taken $9 million from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), money that is fungible and blurs the lines between aid and influence. The Association for Appin Training Centers, a network of Indian software trainers, has called this sloppy journalism a deliberate campaign to tarnish India's reputation.
The target is Appin, a defunct New Delhi cybersecurity firm Reuters branded as a "hacking for hire" kingpin from the early 2010s. Vikram Sharma of the Association calls it bunk, saying that Reuters' reporting twists old classroom slides into "evidence" and leans on a 2013 Norwegian study that never conclusively linked Appin.
"The word 'Appin' appears in isolated contexts, but we're not suggesting inappropriate activity by the company," Sharma noted, even speculating that Appin could have been a victim of falsified evidence. The Reuters reporters concede that today's Appin-named training centers aren't culprits, yet their guilt-by-association smear has cost students jobs and sullied India's image.
The USAID connection raises eyebrows. The Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) flagged Reuters' taxpayer-funded payout, suggesting a coordinated effort to cast India as a rogue state alongside Russia and China. This aligns with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's accusations of USAID meddling in India's elections — a charge echoing the Association's claim of a broader anti-India agenda.
A 2022 Indian study supports this, noting that Western outlets like Reuters often inflate weak claims into exaggerated attacks on New Delhi's progress. The sloppiness is blatant. Delhi court filings allege that the Reuters reporter posed as a recruiter to trick students into spilling dirt, crafting a flimsy tale of global hacking conspiracies.
Reuters once confused a Delhi herbalist for a hacker and got the man arrested for a crime he did not commit — yet it's doubled down on a narrative that the Appin network, which trained 100,000 "white-hat" hackers to strengthen cybersecurity, dismisses as fiction. Reporting on a defunct company served no purpose.
Despite this, the Association alleges that the reporting created a damaging ripple effect. One former Appin student reportedly lost his job due to negative publicity, according to court documents filed in Delhi in 2022.
The Real Offense: Reuters' Propaganda-by-Proxy
The real offense? Reuters' propaganda-by-proxy, funded by USAID dollars, has threatened a U.S.-India partnership that thrives when Washington respects New Delhi's rise. Donald Trump gets this; he's criticized the Biden administration's anti-India bias while advocating stronger ties.
USAID Funding Cuts Further
This further justifies the Trump administration's decision to cut off USAID funding, which would be a significant blow to India's development efforts. The country deserves better than this kind of propaganda-based journalism posing as news.
India and the U.S. have a long-standing partnership on various fronts, including trade, defense, and counter-terrorism cooperation. However, the recent attacks by Reuters have raised serious questions about the credibility of Western media outlets in India.
A Pattern Emerges
When taken in the broader context of a campaign of negative publicity against India, a pattern emerges that paints a friendly country as a villain like Russia or China. This is at a time when India is needed to counter China's growing influence in the region.
India isn't flawless — no country is — but the Association's vast alumni network shows that it's producing talent, not criminals. The real challenge lies in exposing these biased reporting tactics and promoting accurate and balanced journalism.
A Call for Transparency
The U.S.-based news agency Reuters must be held accountable for its actions. We need transparency and accountability from media outlets to ensure that they are not being used as tools of propaganda.