Sudarshan News is an Indian news channel in Hindi medium that has been noted for aggressive propagation of Hindutva ideology and dissemination of Islamophobic content. Suresh Chavhanke is the chairman as well as Editor in Chief.

 

Chavhanke was a long-term volunteer of a Hindu nationalist organisation, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, having held multiple designations and was also associated with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of Bharatiya Janata Party.[1] Chavhanke asserts of practicing ideology driven journalism[2] and prefers that the news-programs over his channel be viewed as opinionated campaigns; he mentions of having significantly contributed towards the ochlocratic atmosphere that led to multiple police complaints (and death threats) against M. F. Husain, for allegedly violating Hindu sentiments and caused him to leave India, on a self-imposed exile till death.

 

Blatant dissemination of anti-Muslim content has been observed[3][4] to manufacturing outright fake news with communal overtones.There have been calls for extrajudicial lynching of Muslims, who refuse to chant a particular slogan in praise of the motherland.

 

In April 2017, Chavhanke was arrested for inciting communal hatred through multiple episodes of a flagship program before securing a bail, two days later. In June 2018, Delhi Minorities Commission issued a notice to the channel, after it broadcast a program that claimed a Muslim-dominated region was inhabited by illegal Bangladeshi and Rohingya infiltrators. In March 2019, a Kozhikode district court ordered the channel to pay a compensation of Rs 50 lakh to Malabar Gold in a defamation suit, after it broadcast morphed visuals alleging the company of having celebrated Pakistani Independence Day.