NEW DELHI, Aug. 8 -- Political leaders are, for the most part, thin-skinned about anything adverse said about them, as evident from the venomous quote of Putin that prefaces this essay. But such hypersensitivity to criticism is the least problematic aspect of the havoc that Putin and his ilk have wreaked on the world and on the very idea of truth, justice and freedom. One had assumed till recently that Donald Trump coined the term "fake news" but long before the orange-haired fibber used it as a chant to discredit all reporting critical of him, the phrase was pervasive in Russia, where Putin mobilized an army of propagandists, dignified as "political technologists" to spin myths in favour of the regime, malign and persecute the critics fo...