NL Hafta

This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Anand Vardhan are joined by Banjot Kaur, a health reporter at Down to Earth.Banjot Kaur begins by explaining the scientific and public health aspects of the ongoing Covid surge in India. "The surge might start decreasing in mid-May, but due to healthcare collapse it won't be seen directly," she says. She also opines on why the Covid curve did not swing up during the Bihar election last year and the farmer protests around the turn of the year and after. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande are joined by Arunabh Saikia of Scroll.Arunabh elaborates upon his recent report on India's oxygen crisis and what caused it. The Narendra Modi government, he explains, planned to set up 150 oxygen generation over eight months ago but only a few of them are up and running. "They only take four to six weeks to set up and we couldn't even do that, it talks a lot about our response,” he says. To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Anand Vardhan are joined by Dr Madhu Gupta, a professor of community medicine at PGIMER, Chandigarh.The conversation begins with India’s Covid situation. On vaccine supplies, Abhinandan asks about India’s export of vaccines and whether developed nations are hoarding supplies. On the surge in Covid infections in the country, Madhu says, “Even when everything came back to normal, the virus was still there. So, it wasn’t just the health community but the people as well who became complacent.”To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by Kavita Murlidharan, an independent journalist.Kavita speaks about what’s driving the assembly election campaign in Tamil Nadu. "It's difficult to understand the mood of the people this time because we don't have Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha. They have been driving the elections in Tamil Nadu for the last 50 years. There's no clear replacement yet," she says.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, host Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by Raman Kirpal, Anand Vardhan and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry, and Shoaib Daniyal of Scroll.Shoaib begins by discussing the ongoing Bengal election, which he’s covering for his news platform. The panellists also discuss the Myanmar coup and India's role as the crisis-struck country’s neighbour. "India has its part in not antagonizing the affairs in Myanmar," Anand argues, while quoting Aung San Suu Kyi's observation that “India, being a great regional power, must shoulder responsibility”.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on NL Hafta, it’s an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Raman Kirpal.In context of the recent Newsance episode, the panel discusses a recent ad of Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojna. Manisha, speaking to the woman in the advertisement, found out that she has not been given a house to live in. A picture of her was taken while she was working as a labourer and that was used without her prior permission. “The story came to us after it went to media outfits in Bengal. No one wanted to carry the story that shows  a woman in the prime minister’s ad,” shares Abhinandan, emphasising how important it is to keep news media free. Raman further shares that he did not see any print or TV media covering this story, except NDTV.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Jayashree Arunachalam, Anand Vardhan and Raman Kirpal are joined by veteran journalist and political commentator Aarti Jairath. Aarti discusses the complexity of the Indian elections and the need for a “grey area” while reporting on it. “One of the temptations that should be resisted is to jump to the conclusion,” she says. The panel follows up on the saga of Bollywood stars in politics. Aarti emphasises Mamta Banerjee's weakness of “glamour girls” and Jayashree brings out the comparative of star power in Tamil Nadu politics. To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on NL Hafta, it’s an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Raman Kirpal.In the light of Mithun Chakroborty joining BJP in Kolkata, Abhinandan lauds his “amazing success story”. “His entire rise has been phenomenal. Govinda was called the poor man’s Mithun,” he added. Manisha also points out how the BJP used left rally’s pictures as their own and circulated them to show the number of people that had turned up for Modi’s rally.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on NL Hafta, it’s an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Anand Vardhan.Abhinandan explains India’s new digital media rules and their implications on organisations like Newslaundry. Manisha notes that such stringent laws are not in place for the television media, while Jayashree and Mehraj point out why these are “rules” and not “laws” because the government did not get them ratified in the Parliament. Mehraj quotes from Caravan’s story on a government report on how the Centre “consulted” with journalists and editors while identifying its media strategy.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Raghu Karnad, author and contributing editor of the Wire.Reflecting back to the Delhi riots that took place last February, Raghu describes how he saw masked men chanting “Jai Shri Ram”, setting fires, and smashing vehicles, even as the police were in the vicinity. He also recalls how the men asked him and other journalists, “Media ho ya mulla ho?” To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.