Fake news sites vie to be India’s Onion

Politicians like Kapil Sibal may be allergic to satire, but fake news sites are catching on in India despite the infotech minister's call for web companies to take down potentially offensive content.

According to the Times of India, the Unreal Times, Faking News, News That Matters Not and a host of Facebook pages have emulated the Onion to publish regular reports like, 'Unable to attract any girl, frustrated man sues Axe,' 'Men talking loudly on the mobile phone have smaller penises' and a video that superimposed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's head on Bollywood star Ajay Devgan's body.  Even though it showed Singh biffing and boffing corruption and inflation (dish-um, dish-um), the Congress party was reportedly not amused.  Some party workers reportedly filed complaints with the cyber crime division of the police.  (Devgan had just put out an action flick called Singham; the parody was titled Manmohan Singham).

"It was ironic," TOI quotes Unreal Times co-founder Karthik Laxman as saying. "While at one end, some people abused us for being Congress supporters, these Congress guys actually accused us of being derogatory."