UPI outage disrupts digital payments across India, users face transaction failures
New Delhi: A widespread disruption in the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) services affected thousands of users across India on Saturday morning, leaving many unable to complete digital transactions via platforms like PhonePe, Google Pay, and Paytm.
Reports on Downdetector showed around 1,168 complaints by noon, with Google Pay accounting for 96 and Paytm for 23. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) confirmed intermittent technical issues causing partial failures in UPI transactions and assured users that efforts were underway to resolve the issue. They also expressed regret for the inconvenience caused.
The outage impacted several major banks including HDFC Bank, State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, and Kotak Mahindra Bank, further highlighting India's growing reliance on UPI for daily financial activities.
This marks the second major outage in recent weeks. On March 26, users had faced similar difficulties for 2–3 hours due to technical glitches.
Meanwhile, on April 8, the NPCI announced that international UPI transactions would no longer support QR code-based payments, aiming to ensure proper identification of the payer. Domestic QR-based payments remain unaffected.
The root cause of Saturday’s outage remains unclear, with possibilities ranging from server overloads and scheduled maintenance to cybersecurity concerns.
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Operation Sindoor: Zubair exposes fake news after India’s strikes on Pakistan
New Delhi: India launched “Operation Sindoor” early Wednesday morning, targeting nine terror launchpads in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). According to reports, 24 missile strikes were carried out in response to the recent terror attack in Pahalgam. The operation reportedly killed around 70 terrorists.
Soon after the strikes, a flood of videos and photos began circulating on social media and TV channels. However, many of these turned out to be false or misleading.
Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of Alt News, has been fact-checking these claims since early morning. He confirmed that many of the videos shared online were actually from other global conflicts, such as those involving Israel, Gaza, and Iran. Some videos were even taken from video games and falsely shared as real footage of the Indian attack.
Pakistan also claimed that it shot down two Indian aircraft. Zubair clarified that this claim is false and that only drones were downed, not manned aircraft.
News Channel Republic TV, aired videos claiming to show the strikes. Zubair revealed that the footage in question was both old and edited, and not a real-time video of the current incident.
Several social media users have shared videos showing explosions in Gaza, falsely claiming they depict Wednesday’s Israeli attack. However, Zubair has traced the original sources of these clips and confirmed that they are unrelated to the recent Indian operation.
Zubair’s efforts to counter misinformation have been widely appreciated on social media. Some users went as far as suggesting he deserves the Bharat Ratna for his work. Others noted that the kind of fact-checking done by Alt News could cost the government up to ₹100 crore if done officially.
