Paid Fake News
On November 2025 Mathrubhumi reported a fake news which went viral in Kerala. The News talks about Habel Anwar, a 13-year-old boy from Kerala who reportedly stopped attending school after class 2, claimed that he received a grant from the Mercatus Center at George Mason University for a paper on “white holes.” Mathrubhumi News in Kerala publicised the claim, and Anwar subsequently appeared on podcasts of extreme Islamic organisations such as the Wisdom Islamic Organization. The Muslim community in Kerala described him as the “next Isaac Newton” and a successor to A. P. J. Abdul Kalam sahib. [4] [5]
He later delivered talks characterised as pseudoscientific, along with religious interpretations presented under the assertion that he had been awarded USD 10,000 for “breakthrough work” on white holes, expanding Albert Einstein’s theories, and that he was a research scholar affiliated with the Mercatus Center at GMU. He also appeared at events organised by Islamic groups, giving lectures linking science and the Qur’an. [6] [7]
On 27 November, the Mercatus Center released the official Emergent Ventures grant list curated by Tyler Cowen, clarifying that Anwar’s grant was intended to support his preparation for the Physics Olympiad and to expand his general interest in physics, and that it was not related to any research on white holes. In an interview on the Malayalam news channel MediaOne, Anwar stated that he had purchased a gaming PC for USD 4,000 using out of the 10,000 USD grant he received. [8] In another public programme, when asked about his preparation for the Physics Olympiad, he stated that he was no longer pursuing the Olympiad. [9] Following these developments, public discussions also raised questions about the credibility of Mathrubhumi News. Some users alleged that the channel had reported misleading information in exchange for money from the concerned party. These claims circulated widely on social media. [10] [11] [12]
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