NL Hafta

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.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Madhu Trehan, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Pratik Sinha, co-founder of AltNews.Abhinandan asks what everyone thinks about the interrogation of journalists during the pandemic, Arnab Goswami being the most prominent example. Pratik says the issue comes down to “what is more primary: freedom of speech, or right to life”. He brings up how Goswami once targeted Umar Khalid and a subsequent attack on Khalid’s life. “Is it okay for news anchors to carry out hate-mongering day in and day out, endangering the lives of people much less privileged than them?” he says.Madhu believes free speech is important, and Goswami should be allowed to say whatever he did. But, she adds, “everybody else also has the freedom to follow up on it”. On Arnab being questioned for 12 hours, she says “the police rarely acts on its own”, and something as major as questioning a journalist “usually comes somewhere from the top”. What one needs to ask, she says, is who is instructing the Maharashtra police? Mehraj adds that he thinks it’s harassment but not a freedom of speech issue. “Going on TV and lying, blatantly lying, communalising an incident” doesn’t come under freedom of speech, he says.Discussing fake news during the pandemic, Pratik says misinformation has “spiked’, and there have been varying patterns of fake news. First about the Chinese state, then medical misinformation and later, when the focus shifted to the Tablighi Jamaat, “for the past 30 days, there has been a majority of communal misinformation”. Pratik says news channels are “becoming megaphones for these false claims”, and that the pattern of misinformation is part of a well-organised effort. Abhinandan says it’s a “well-oiled machinery” and while he can’t prove it, he believes it’s funded by political parties. The conversation shifts to the government’s Aarogya Setu app. It might be an invasion of privacy, Abhinandan says, but in today’s circumstances, it’s “not such an easy liberty versus government-control-over-you choice”. Ideally, Madhu adds, the data on the app should be such that “we put it in and then, say, within six months or a year, it expires”. Mehraj says, “The best way to do surveillance for coronavirus is to do testing.” He thinks Aarogya Setu has practical problems, apart from privacy. “Once you’re in a lockdown, the app doesn’t make sense because if you’re in a lockdown, you’re not going out,” he points out. The panel also discusses the deaths of Irrfan Khan and Rishi Kapoor, and much more. Tune in! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this week’s episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kripal, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Anand Vardhan are joined by Anuradha Bhasin, executive editor of Kashmir Times.Abhinandan asks Anuradha how reporting is being carried out in the valley at the moment. Anuradha says they’re “unable to bring out print editions”, and printed copies aren’t being distributed by hawkers. Barring a few newspapers, she adds, the government has “stopped all ads”.Discussing the few journalists bringing out stories, Anuradha says, “The pandemic is being used as a cover to target them and harass them.” Mehraj agrees, saying: “Journalism has been declared a crime in Kashmir.” He adds that this has been the case for a while, and legal coercion is used to ensure that “self-censorship becomes pervasive”. Manisha comments on how journalists are being “called and questioned” over their stories. Raman brings up the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, which empowers those in power to arrest journalists. Anuradha calls the UAPA a “stringent and disproportionate law” since the onus to prove one’s innocence lies on the person booked under the act. Abhinandan brings up how historian Ramachandra Guha moved his column from Hindustan Times. He adds that Guha had accused HT of censoring his column back in 2007-08, but it got no attention since social media was not big at the time. Anand says there are two ways of looking at it. The first is “a matter between a private company and a man who writes for it”, and the second is about what is acceptable and what isn’t in the press. In the first case, he says, “We don’t know what the company has to say about it.” Considering Guha has options for where he could publish his column, Anand doesn’t think Guha represents the “larger scheme of things” for columnists as a professional group.Mehraj points out that the conversation isn’t really about Guha, but about how “a very powerful media organisation decided to censor a piece they didn’t like”. Manisha adds that this shouldn’t be confused with editorial inputs.Moving on to Arnab Goswami’s show on the Palghar lynching, Raman says, “Arnab manufactured the news and made it communal.” Discussing the alleged attack on Goswami, Abhinandan says Goswami’s statement on it “made it seem like there was an attack on his life”. He adds: “And then he says, ‘Now you give me sympathy’. You are taking away what he had done to journalism the night before.”Manisha says Goswami’s introduction of a communal angle into the lynching, when rumours are actually to blame, is “criminally irresponsible, it’s not journalistic, it makes no sense.”The panel also discusses All India Radio’s casual employees losing their livelihood, and the backlash to Tejasvi Surya’s tweets. 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. 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”.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, 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. 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. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kripal, Manisha Pande, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Supriya Sharma, executive editor of Scroll.Abhinandan asks Supriya about the arrest of an ABP Majha journalist for allegedly spreading false information that might have prompted the gathering of migrant workers in Bandra, Mumbai. Was the arrest warranted, or is the journalist a scapegoat?Supriya calls it a “complete overreach”, suggesting authorities found a journalist to blame and that a lot doesn’t add up. She adds that it’s “unlikely” that the migrant workers watch a Marathi news channel, since a lot of them are from non-Marathi speaking regions. Raman thinks the journalist “became an alibi for government miscommunication”. Mehraj says “blaming the person on the lowest rung” is wrong. “If the journalist was hauled up for misreporting, what about the editor and owner of the channel?” he adds. Manisha says, “Histrionics aside, I don’t see where the reporter screwed up so massively as to warrant an arrest.”Abhinandan brings up Supriya’s report on migrant workers camping out under Delhi’s Yamuna Bridge. Supriya adds that people are reluctant to speak on camera, since they are apprehensive of the consequences of their identities being revealed. Abhinandan says a “distrust of the government”, due to previous experiences, makes people unwilling to get tested for Covid-19.Mehraj explains how this distrust is seen “more starkly” in Kashmir. When a soldier visits your home to beat you up or haul you off to an army camp, he says, your instinct is to run and hide even if they come as part of census activities. “There’s no switch for trust that you can turn it off and on,” he says. Moving on to India Today’s “sting operation” in three madrasas in Delhi, Abhinandan says it adds to the “anti-Muslim rhetoric” in the media. Mehraj thinks the sting happened because of this pre-existing narrative, and “they were trying to find something to force-fit into it”. Manisha says the report didn’t warrant a sting in the first place, considering one of the madrasa representatives voluntarily participated in an India TV report.The panel also discusses the media's “broken model”, Bill Maher’s rant on whether the term “Chinese virus” should be used, 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, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Dhanya Rajendran, editor-in-chief of The News Minute.Starting off with the Tablighi Jamaat controversy, Dhanya explains how the event had hundreds of participants from the southern states, but governments took a long time to address the problem. Manisha asks why tourists from coronavirus-affected nations like Thailand and Malaysia were allowed to attend in the first place. Mehraj dispels Manisha’s theories of the Tablighi Jamaat being a radicalised group, explaining that it started as an Islamic revivalist movement that, like every other movement over time, became rigid in its thinking. “The Indian media only starts to care about Muslims when they have to demonise them,” he says.Abhinandan asks what we can really know about the Covid-19 spread in India if we’ve only conducted as few as 47,000 tests. Dhanya thinks this figure is not uniform across India; it’s just a handful of states where testing has been ramped up. Raman says that the problem is not with the test kits, but that tests aren’t being conducted due to the criteria set by the central government on who qualifies for the test. Manisha feels the government is “completely opaque” with the numbers, except for a few state governments. The panel discusses the Supreme Court order that the media should carry the government’s official version of the outbreak and not create panic. Raman says it’s risky, since the order can be interpreted however the government wants. Mehraj says, “The problem with giving out government data is the government seldom gives out any information.” Manisha agrees that the media has spread panic, singling out the “pro-Modi media” which uses phrases like “corona jihad” and “jihadi biowarfare”. The panel also discusses positive stories in these dark times, Kerala’s handling of the crisis, China reopening its wet markets, the Central Vista redevelopment plan, 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, Manisha Pande, Madhu Trehan, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Pratik Sinha, co-founder of AltNews.Discussing the interrogation of Arnab Goswami, Pratik says the issue comes down to “what is more primary: freedom of speech, or right to life”. Madhu believes free speech is important, and Goswami should be allowed to say whatever he did. But, she adds, “everybody else also has the freedom to follow up on it”. Pratik also explains how news channels are “becoming megaphones” for fake news, and that the pattern of misinformation is part of a well-organised effort. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.