NL Hafta

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Shoaib Daniyal, associate editor at Scroll. Discussing the rerouting of Shramik Special trains, Mehraj says, “I am just at a loss. Even incompetence alone doesn’t explain this. This is a time when they are running a fraction of the usual number of trains...It is not just that these trains are getting lost, but they are also not providing food or even water.” To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by our in-house team of Raman Kirpal, Mehraj D Lone, Manisha Pande and Anand Vardhan. Discussing the recent border dispute between India and Nepal, Anand describes the dispute’s historical context and the causes of the current fracas. Mehraj argues that this could be attributed to India’s “projection of power” since the start of the new millennium, which might have become less effective after a decade-long slowdown in economic growth. Mehraj adds that “our national imagination, especially the kind that the BJP and the Hindutva camp has...can’t accept that we are equal with these people. You have to project power, you have to project greatness. But the basis of that greatness is no longer there. Because your own economy is struggling.” Abhinandan says: “As long as Covid is dominating the world, these will be just side acts.”The panel shifts to the controversy over the Congress providing the Uttar Pradesh government with buses to transport migrant workers. Abhinandan says, “I am no fan of the Congress, but here I think there is a lot of monkey balancing [by the media]. What the UP government is doing is disgusting.” Mehraj agrees, deploring the government’s general treatment of migrant workers. Moving on to the finance minister’s announcements over the past week, Mehraj says the government should have put more money in the hands of the people. Raman says, “You introduced Aadhaar. You made it compulsory for people to open bank accounts. But when the time has come to transfer money, you aren’t doing it.” Anand suggests that the government focused on structural reforms. However, he acknowledges Abhinandan’s point about “the lack of policy imagination in offering immediate succour”. In response to a subscriber email, the panel also discusses conservatism in India, and Anand argues that the ideology is essentially “continuity with change”. Finally, the panel talks about the Covid-19 cases at Zee News, and Newslaundry’s recent report about the cluster. Abhinandan says the employees who tested positive “might not get the sympathy that they should get, because of how Sudhir Chaudhary and other people like him have positioned themselves. That is a sad outcome.” Manisha is more optimistic, hoping that “people will make the distinction between Sudhir and regular Zee workers who are living alone or living with family.”The panel also talks about Cyclone Amphan, Barkha Dutt’s ground reporting during the pandemic, and the arrest of Rwanda genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga.For this and much more, tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by our in-house team of Raman Kirpal, Mehraj D Lone, Manisha Pande and Anand Vardhan.Talking about the Covid-19 cases at Zee News, and Newslaundry’s recent report about the cluster, Abhinandan says the employees who tested positive “might not get the sympathy that they should get, because of how Sudhir Chaudhary and other people like him have positioned themselves. That is a sad outcome.” Manisha is more optimistic, hoping that “people will make the distinction between Sudhir and regular Zee workers who are living alone or living with family.”To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Anand Vardhan of Newslaundry are joined by Shelly Walia, senior editor at the Quint.Rather surprisingly, this episode kicks off with a healthy debate on whether litti chokha belongs to Uttar Pradesh or Bihar. The panellists then engage in an extended discussion on their favourite regional delicacies. Mehraj finally ends the discussion with a tongue-in-cheek remark: “Vegetarian and delicacy don’t go together in the same sentence.” Shelly then turns to the subject of Amulya Leona, a young woman from Karnataka, being slapped with a sedition case for saying “Pakistan Zindabad” at an AIMIM rally in Hyderabad. Mehraj explains how this issue pertains to which side of the free speech debate one stands on. Shelly argues that the BJP latches onto such statements to divert attention from real problems. “Just think of the things that you got to hear before the Delhi election when it was constantly, like, India, Pakistan, Muslim, Hindu, current puhuch jayega and goli maaro. The kind of shit that is being said by our ministers...and here is a 20-year-old ‘woke’ woman who says something like that and we call her idiotic. I don’t think that’s a fair thing because I just feel things are going off track.”Abhinandan disagrees, arguing that every protest can’t be about everything. “If every protest becomes bhadaas nikalna, then the repercussions will also be bhadaas nikalne wala,” he says. While Mehraj bats for absolute freedom to say whatever one wants, Abhinandan puts the AIMIM at fault for not vetting what was to be spoken from their stage. “I think it is a dumb thing to give platform to someone like that to make a fool of themselves. Of course, the person has the right to make a fool of themselves, but is that good for the movement I am fighting for?”On Donald Trump’s visit and the possibility that there won’t be a trade agreement, Anand opines that the fact the US president is visiting India alone is a symbolic step towards de-hyphenating India-Pakistan. “We are in a phase where the big power and the emerging power equations would be more guarded by complex interdependence rather than clear takeaways from each other.” Bringing in a less discussed nuance, Abhinandan argues that Trump’s visit will refuel the BJP’s discourse which has been dulled by its electoral loss in Delhi. The panellists also talk about AAP legislator Saurabh Bharadwaj organising monthly Hanuman Chalisa prayers in his constituency, and his demand for erecting a Hanuman statue at the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya; the Supreme Court’s order granting women permanent commission in the Army; the importance of formal education; the New York Times publishing an article by Taliban leader Sirajuddin Haqqani; and much more. Tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Raman Kirpal of Newslaundry are joined by Neha Dixit, journalist and professor at Ashoka University.The podcast starts with a discussion on media reports on the Delhi riots. Neha says, “Lots of people are claiming that their relatives are missing. Dead bodies have been dumped at the hospital with no identification made since the investigation officers are too busy to get the post-mortem started. So the death toll will still go up.”Talking about the overnight transfer of Justice S Muralidhar, Abhinandan says, “It is rather alarming the brazenness with which the state is carrying out whatever their project is.“ Manisha reasons why the violence is centred in North East Delhi, saying, ”This is where Amit shah gave his ‘Shaheen bagh ko jhatka lagega’ speech, along with a large number of unemployed youth from both sides present there.” Regarding the Delhi police’s inaction during the riots, Abhinandan says this “disrespect” now for the police will outlast Modi and Shah. “The police have shot themselves in the foot.” Mehraj talks about the judiciary’s role in the violence. “If you go back and see books and reports on instances of communal violence since 1947...if you take the names of the places away, you can’t tell one from the other,” he says. “Everywhere, the police has sided with the rioters and the judiciary has been stacked against the victims. The only difference this time is that everything is being recorded on camera.”Raman believes the riots were orchestrated. ”The circumstantial evidence, so far, are strongly indicating that the people who orchestrated all this came from the border areas,” he tells the panel. The panel also discusses the media coverage of Trump’s visit, the Delhi government’s inaction during the violence, #MeToo in India, and more. Tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Anand Vardhan, and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by Kapil Komireddi, author and journalist.They start with a discussion on the Delhi violence. Abhinandan asks the panellists how precisely they will describe what happened. Was it “riot” or “pogrom”? Kapil believes it was more than a riot and, had it continued to escalate, could have become a pogrom. Anand sees it purely as communal violence and a confrontation between supporters and opponents of the citizenship law. Mehraj prefers the term “communal carnage”.Talking about the foreign media’s coverage of the violence, Kapil says there’s a lack of nuance. “When a piece is written in Delhi and sent to London or New York for editing, I think the editors add their own language, they compress language, nuance somehow gets eliminated from that coverage,” he adds.He, however, rejects the suggestion that such coverage is a conspiracy to defame India. “I think India is supplying enough material to people who dislike the country,” he argues.Kapil goes on to question Narendra Modi’s competence as a leader, “For weeks, Gujarat burnt around him and he did nothing. In Delhi, in the capital of the country, the city burnt for three days and again he was incompetent, he could not do anything. So the defining characteristic of the prime minister is incompetence.”Speaking about how the violence started, Raman says, “I think prima facie, it was deliberate. It was started with some intentions to teach a lesson.” He adds that Muslims retaliated where they were in large numbers, making it a full-blown riot.About the police’s role, he says, “There are few brilliant individuals in any institution. But let us face it, on those three days, these men in khaki, they behaved like Hindus.” Anand, however, argues that it is early to say the police were incompetent considering the sequence of the events is still unclear. He says, “The cause and effect relationship, what caused it, is still very hazy.”Mehraj disagrees. “If we have to find the truth, we have to go beyond these institutions, beyond the police,” he says. “This is a police that not only sided with the rioters but was complicit in the violence”. He notes that the police actively destroyed CCTV cameras to ensure there was no evidence of their actions.The panel then discuss the coronavirus pandemic. “It seems a lot more alarming but when you see the age-wise break-up of fatality, for a young fit person, this is like a flu that goes away,” Abhinandan says, initiating the conversation.Mehraj, however, points out that the fatality rate being low doesn’t mean that the threat isn’t severe for a country like India, where “without a proper healthcare system, you are asking for disaster.”They also discuss the suspension of seven Congress MPs, Justice S Muralidhar’s transfer from the Delhi High Court to Punjab, freedom of speech, and much more.Tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by Suhasini Haider, diplomatic editor of the Hindu newspaper, and Dr Arjun Dang, CEO of Dr Dang’s Labs.Starting off with a discussion on the coronavirus pandemic, Abhinandan wonders why India’s approach to containing it differs from that prescribed by the WHO, and what impact this will have. To Abhinandan’s question about the government not allowing healthcare professionals to use existing kits to test for coronavirus, Dang explains that this is to ensure uniformity in and quality of testing. All testing kits for coronavirus must be approved by the National Institute of Virology, Pune. “If the testing isn’t done in a controlled and regulated manner, we will actually go from the frying pan into the fire”. To Mehraj’s question about India’s testing capacity, Dang points out that the pandemic has disrupted the supply chains of the kits manufactured in Europe and China. India now faces an uphill battle to get more kits. So, it should judiciously use the kits it has.Talking about Modi’s address to the nation on the pandemic, Suhasini says it lacked substance but was reassuring. Abhinandan remarks that it was the first speech in which Modi showed some humility. Manisha notes that he talked up solutions taken from Western countries without thinking whether they would work in India. While it was high on emotion, it lacked substance. Abhinandan doesn’t think India has a plan to tackle the economic fallout of the pandemic. Mehraj argues that the prime minister didn’t address the nation but only those privileged sections of society that can afford to stay home; he didn’t address the anxieties of those who have no choice but to go out to feed their families. The panel also discuss Ranjan Gogoi’s nomination to the Rajya Sabha. Abhinandan wonders why Indians do not want to retire. Mehraj quips, “This is probably the only country in the world where people agitate for the retirement age to be raised rather than to be lowered.”They also discuss the political stalemate in Madhya Pradesh; the Press Council of India’s notice to the Telegraph for a headline that allegedly mocked India’s president; nepotism and mediocrity in the media industry and other sections of society, and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by data journalist Rukmini S.Abhinandan begins by bringing up Rukmini’s piece in The Print where she wrote that India could see up to 30,000 COVID-19 deaths by May. She says this is not her prediction — it’s based on current growth rate of cases, trajectories of other countries, and predictable modeling done by statisticians that show similar pathways, so this could be the direction India is headed. “Even with significant intervention, there will be not an ending, but a reduction [in cases],” Rukmini says.Discussing how the 21-day nationwide lockdown was imposed by Narendra Modi to enforce social distancing, both Raman and Mehraj think India won't be able to handle that many patients. Mehraj asks what measures exist for the homeless, and those dependent on daily wages. Raman also cites data* on the state of public healthcare in India, such as the fact that India has only 9,512 ICU beds for its 130-crore population.Bringing up the WHO’s guidelines and its emphasis on community outreach, Manisha says she was stunned by Modi’s decision on the lockdown and the manner in which he communicated it to the public. “Someone who supposedly was a chaiwallah, who rose from nowhere, is so out of touch with how Indians live.” Abhinandan says there’s a sense of “theatre” in what Modi does, in contrast to the Kerala health minister’s low-profile press briefings every day. The panel also discusses the role of journalists during a crisis like the coronavirus pandemic, India’s support for public institutions, police brutality, and much more.Tune in!*The data Raman cited — number of ventilators, ICU beds, isolation beds exclusively earmarked across states to treat COVID-19 patients — is as of March 24. This data is changing dynamically as more capacity is added on a daily basis. For instance, on March 26, the capacity was upgraded to 85,976 isolation beds, 22,772 ICU beds, and 14245 ventilators.Correction: Raman said Delhi has 252 ICU beds. The number is actually for ventilators. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Mehraj D Lone, Raman Kirpal, and Manisha Pande are joined by Pragya Tiwari, journalist and regional director of Flint Asia. Starting off with the “Bois Locker Room” controversy, Pragya suggests that the group was “a manifestation of an endemic crisis” that we tend to ignore. “We keep forgetting how thin a line it is between inappropriate conversation and rape culture. It is on a spectrum,” she says. “The same thing about the guy’s death. That is another thing we don’t talk about as a society, as families, which is mental health. So this is just a manifestation of two conversations we radically need to have — in our schools, in our colleges, in our homes, through counselling — which is mental health and addressing rape culture, patriarchal attitudes.” Manisha says the incident demonstrates that social media allegations should be taken with a grain of salt, especially as they detract from legitimate societal challenges. Raman agrees, suggesting that the problem was further compounded by the “social media trial”.With regards to the prime minister’s recent speech, Pragya bemoans Modi’s use of “tyag” and “tapasya” to describe the distress faced by migrant workers, since it implies that their struggles were of their own volition. The panel discusses Modi’s emphasis on “atmanirbharta” and the concept of “self-reliance”. Raman points out the dire state of manufacturing in India over the past decade, and suggests that protectionism is not the answer. Mehraj is more sympathetic to the concept of Swadeshi, but laments that the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s conception of Swadeshi is only centred on the capitalist class. Manisha brings up the media’s misreporting of Modi’s announcement as a new “Rs 20 lakh crore package”, when the prime minister actually included previously-announced schemes and the RBI’s liquidity measures as part of the “package”. Pragya agrees, arguing that it is “slightly inappropriate because the RBI is technically an independent institution that decides monetary policy by itself”.The panel also discusses the recent changes to labour laws in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. Pragya describes the changes as “abject regulations” and deplores the use of the ordinances to bring about these changes. She points out that labour and capital do not have equal bargaining power and that labourers have very little legal recourse. “Instead of rationalising compliance, you have basically thrown out the baby with the bathwater,” she says. Abhinandan agrees, suggesting that the government is just “taking a flamethrower to a problem”. He adds that the power of labourers and trade unions has greatly decreased over the past three decades.To listen to this and much more, tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Anand Vardhan are joined by Yogita Limaye, the India correspondent for the BBC. The conversation begins with the gas leak in Visakhapatnam and how the BBC, which has a Telugu language service, is covering it. Abhinandan asks Yogita about how the BBC has been criticised for not serving Indian interests. Yogita says she hasn’t been accused of anti-India bias by anyone she knows in the Indian newspace, though the organisation is attacked at a personal and organisational level on television and social media. She adds, “That entire thing about toeing a foreign line: I’m not entirely sure where that comes in.”Moving on to the three photojournalists in Kashmir who won the Pulitzer, and the controversy that followed in India, Anand points out that the award citation says India revoked “Kashmir’s independence” which he finds misleading, since Kashmir never had any sovereignty even when Article 370 was in place.Raman says he feels a “sense of pride” that an Indian won. While he doesn’t want to make it political, he says, what was in the photos was “absolutely real”. Mehraj says the government can be critical of the photos since they do not reflect the government in a good light, but “what is more distressing” is the criticism of the award by “so-called journalists who should be celebrating it”, even if they don’t agree with what the photos represent.Manisha says the biggest problem with people’s dislike for the award is their “refusal to accept that Kashmir is a conflict zone”. She adds that it’s scary how the Indian media has influenced people in such a way that “the tolerance to see what is happening in Kashmir has been reduced to zero”. Talking about liquor stores being opened, Manisha says the moralistic argument of closing them during the lockdown in the first place is wrong. “The judgement of people standing outside thekas is classist,” she says. Raman says there’s a history to the moral judgement attached to alcohol, bringing up how alcohol is sold in black polythene bags to “hide” it. Anand says it boils down to the question of what is essential and what isn’t. “Given it’s very low space in the priority list that people should have, I think it was not a well thought-out idea,” he says. Abhinandan moves on to the Karnataka government’s decision to not send its migrant workers back home. Anand says that restricting movement is a violation of the migrants’ fundamental rights. “The charm of cheap labour and the fear of losing that is always there,” he says, which explains the builders’ lobby urging that the migrant workers stay behind. Raman calls it a “state-sponsored kidnapping” that amounts to slavery.Mehraj digresses into how the lockdown was intended to give the government time to prepare for a surge in the number of positive cases, but this hasn’t happened. “By the end of this, God forbid, we’ll see more people have died from the fallout of this, rather than from the disease itself,” he says. The panel also discusses the Aarogya Setu app, militancy in Kashmir, bias in the media, and much more. Tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.