Newslaundry Podcast

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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out 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. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, Anand Vardhan, and Jayashree Arunachalam of Newslaundry are joined by Dhanya Rajendran, editor-in-chief of the News Minute.Commenting on the murder of a lawyer couple in Telangana even after the state’s high court had ordered that they be protected, Dhanya says, “Whoever executed the murder, whoever gave the contract for the murder knew clearly that the court is closely watching this couple, but they just didn’t care.” In this context, the panel discuss police brutality in the country and police’s loss of public credibility.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by author and journalist Hridayesh Joshi.Hridayesh begins by talking about his book, Rage of the River, which analysed the Kedarnath disaster. On the uncertainty surrounding the cause of the recent disaster in Uttarakhand, and its ramifications, he stresses the need for an “early warning system” as well as a robust disaster management response. To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, Mehraj D Lone, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by Vivek Kaul, an author and journalist.Starting off with the union budget, which was presented on February 1, Vivek says the government has “cleaned up the expenditure side of the budget”. He also explains what “health and wellbeing” refers to, and just how the government’s push for “atmanirbhar” will play out. To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Raman Kirpal are joined by Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor of the Caravan magazine.The discussion starts off with the farmers’ tractor rally on Republic Day. Hartosh says, “I was not surprised that the route was broken on the morning of the rally. Anybody who was following the protests with a degree of closeness knew this was going to be happening.”To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Anand Vardhan, Manisha Pande, and Raman Kirpal are joined by Aunindyo Chakravarty, a former senior managing editor at NDTV India and NDTV Profit who currently works with NewsClick.The discussion begins with the transcripts of the purported WhatsApp chats between Republic’s Arnab Goswami and former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta. Abhinandan says, “I think Arnab hasn’t denied these chats and he has had more than enough time to. Neither have any of the other players denied the chats saying that these are nonsense, ‘this has not been said by us’.”To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Raman Kirpal are joined by former Newslaundry reporter Rahul Kotiyal, who currently works with Dainik Bhaskar. Starting off with new developments in the farmer protests at the borders of Delhi, Raman talks about how the Supreme Court’s order to stay the implementation of the farm laws might impact the protests. The conversation also spans WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, the recent stock trading fraud by a CNBC Awaaz anchor, and Donald Trump’s impeachment.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on NL Hafta, it's an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan, and Jayashree Arunachalam.The conversation starts with the big news of Trump supporters storming the Capitol in Washington DC. Abhinandan and Raman discuss the news coverage and the speech Trump made prior to the siege. The panelists also discuss the stand that the American media took on the issue, the attack on journalists, and how social media banned Trump.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on NL Hafta, it's an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Jayashree Arunachalam.The conversation starts with Mehraj explaining how the recently concluded District Development Council elections in Kashmir were aimed primarily at "depoliticising" the region's politics.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by Priyanka Pulla, an independent journalist, and Jammi N Rao, an independent public health physician.The conversation begins with the detection of new strains of Covid in the UK and South Africa. Jammi points out that the two variants are “very different” with different mutations. He believes it was the “hard work of the scientists” that led to it being found in the UK first, and also because the UK has “one of the most advanced labs in the world”. Manisha asks Priyanka about the highs and lows of the Indian government’s response to the pandemic. “There was too much denial regarding Covid,” Priyanka says. “Till date, the government has not agreed to community transmission.” India did “ramp-up tests when we got down to it”, she says, but communication was a big failure on the part of the government.To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy

This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kripal and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by Patricia Mukhim, the editor of the Shillong Times. The conversation begins with Patricia explaining why she resigned from the Editors Guild of India. The guild had shown her no support when she was targeted for questioning the authorities over inaction in a case of ethnic discrimination and violence in Meghalaya. She also explains the importance of the Bodoland Territorial Council in protecting the rights of the Bodo community in Assam. She praises the change in leadership of the council from Hagrama Mohilary to Pramod Boro, and says it will help bring peace to the community. To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Timecodes2:37 - Headlines6:08 - Farmer's Protest21:59 - Arvind Kejriwal on House Arrest30:48 - Love Jihad35:15 - Central Vista Project50:44 - Jallikattu Goes For Oscar52:35 - DGCI Asks Serum And Bharat Biotech For More Data And NDTV Fake News1:09:50 - Love Jihad1:13:21 - Subscriber Mails1:26:55 - RecommendationsThis week Newslaundry panel’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Jayashree Arunachalam and Anand Vardhan are joined by Asmita Nandy, a journalist with The Quint. The conversation starts with the ongoing farmers' protest.  The panel discusses how similar laws have impacted Bihar’s farmers. Anand believes that “farmers in Bihar have not shown disagreement to this bill.” Asmita talks about how discontent against the Ambanis and Adanis has always existed. The panel also discusses the various criticisms that surround the new farm laws. Jayashree believes that the actual problem is “breaking down an existing structure without knowing how to replace it.”  The discussion then moves on to the

Timecodes04:35  -  Headlines09:15  -  Farmer protests13:01  -  Media coverage of farmer protests1:04:03  -  Rajinikanth to launch political party in January1:05:43  -  UN secretary general Antonio Gutteres’ speech on the environment1:09:26  -  Amit Malviya's tweet flagged on Twitter1:22:20  -  Subscriber mails1:43:13  -  RecommendationsThis week on NL Hafta, it’s an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, Raman Kirpal, and our reporter Nidhi Suresh, who has been covering the farmer protests at Delhi’s borders. The conversation starts with how the TV news media covered the protests, and the pushback against “Godi media” by protesters. Describing the nature of the coverage, Manisha says: “It’s the same thing that they’ve been doing for a while now, and we’ve seen this from the CAA protests onwards. Essentially, what these channels do is: they go to these protest sites, they’ll find one or two c

Timecodes4:14 - Headlines7:51 - Cyclone Nivar hits Chennai and Puducherry14:43 - Kerala withdraws Police Act amendment28:57 - Farmer protests44:05 - Jallikattu goes to the Oscars47:24 - UP brings ‘love jihad’ ordinance1:12:15 - ED summons Shiv Sena MLA1:16:57 - Subscriber mail1:27:47 - Sushil Modi accuses Lalu Prasad Yadav of running political show from behind bars1:32:23 - RecommendationsThis week on NL Hafta, it is an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Anand Vardhan.The discussion opens with Jayashree talking about the Tamil Nadu government’s response to Cyclone Nivar. Comparing it with the handling of the 2015 Chennai floods, she says, “The government response, clearly learning its lessons from the past, has been great. As early as November 23, they had gotten in place national disaster relief forces...relief camps were set up, and the communication from the government has been extremely clear. This was one of their huge failures during the C

Timecodes00:00 - Introduction and headlines11:18 - The current race for vaccines28:22 - Freedom of speech and state of Indian media01:04:12 - Subscriber letters01:20:39 - India not being part of the RCEP01:27:53 - Chitra and Smita’s recommendations01:36:52 - Subscriber letters01:59:21 - RecommendationsIn this week’s Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Smita Prakash, editor-in-chief of ANI, and Chitra Subramaniam, journalist and co-founder of the News Minute.The conversation kicks off with the recent developments around Covid vaccines. Chitra says: “I have the sense that China is going to emerge with some kind of a people’s vaccine...If they come up with a vaccine that’s universally affordable and the price point is right, I don’t see why any country will not take it.”On the state of the media today, Smita says, “The media itself has changed. You had 100-150 newspapers and one Doordarshan and All India Radio which were state-owned..." She adds: “There are many

Timecodes00:00 - Introduction and headlines08:50 - Biden’s win in the US presidential election42:04 - Arnab’s Goswami’s arrest and bail, and freedom of speech01:10:08 - Subscriber letters01:41:42 - RecommendationsThis week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Anand Vardhan are joined by Joanna Slater, the India bureau chief of the Washington Post.Starting off with the US presidential election and Trump’s pushback against Biden winning, Joanna says there is “no sign whatsoever of any irregularities large enough to change this result”. Anand thinks the “split in political America is quite evident, and it will have a bearing on the next four years”. On the Bihar election results, Abhinandan talks about the possibility of caste being a “primary voting decision-making metric”, and Anand explains that the “consolidations in this election have been between two rival social coalitions”. Jayashree says, “It was interesting that an overwhelming number of women voted for the NDA.

Timestamps03:16 - Headlines05:31 - Bihar election40:48 - Arnab Goswami arrested by Mumbai police01:03:56 - France and Vienna attacks01:04:48 - Subscriber mails 01:06:16 - France And Vienna attacks01:10:17 - Recommendations01:11:13 - Subscriber mails 01:12:46 - France and Vienna attacks01:35:43 - Subscriber mails01:57:39 - US presidential election02:00:48 - RecommendationsThis week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, and Mehraj Lone are joined by Arfa Khanum, senior editor at the Wire.Starting off with the Bihar Assembly election, Arfa talks about Tejashwi Yadav’s “baggage”, being the son of Lalu Prasad Yadav. Manisha says Bihar was no “paradise” under Lalu, and Mehraj agrees. The panel discusses the coverage and optics of leaders from both marginalised and dominant communities.On the arrest of Republic’s Arnab Goswami, Abhinandan says the “overpowering support” Goswami received from politicians is a first. Mehraj says the case has been made into a freedom of the press issue,

Timestamps:00:00 - Introduction and headlines10:09 - The shooting at Munger and Bihar's election dynamics33:02 - Subscriber letters41:54 - The pope's statement on same-sex civil unions45:55 - College student’s murder in Faridabad, media coverage58:47 - Subscriber letters01:01:49 - The 2+2 meet, Indian-Americans’ influence on the US election01:06:57 - Controversial ABVP leader appointed to AIIMS Madurai board 01:13:11 - Subscriber letters01:29:17 - France's culture of mockery and its relationship with the Islamic world01:46:25 - Subscriber letters01:48:16 - RecommendationsThis week on NL Hafta, it’s an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, Jayashree Arunachalam and Anand Vardhan.The discussion kicks off with how Covid hasn’t affected voter turnout in the Bihar Assembly election. Anand doesn’t think the turnout of 54.26 percent is “significantly higher” than the past but it’s good enough, given the apprehension that the pandemic would discourage voting. “Far from discoura

Help us understand what you like, or dislike, about NL Hafta before it goes behind the paywall again. Take the survey here. This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal and Mehraj D Lone are joined by independent journalist Rohini Mohan.The panelists discuss Zee News refusing to reveal its sources to the Delhi High Court with regard to its reporting on the Delhi riots. Abhinandan asks if it’s time to revisit long-established traditions like freedom of speech. Manisha believes that “revealing sources by one TV channel in court can set a precedent, which can be used against other journalists going forward”.On the changing nature of federalism in India, which is one of the reasons for the BJP’s failure in some southern states, Rohini says: “Whether it’s a BJP-ruled state or not, there’s a growing sense of the Centre overstepping its functions — GST being the great betrayal.” Raman agrees, saying that through bodies like the CBI and the ED, the Centre’s intervention into sta