Newslaundry Podcast

In this week’s episode, Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by Madhu Trehan, Anand Vardhan, Manisha Pande, and journalist and author Salil Tripathi.The discussion kicks off with speeches and controversies in Parliament this week. This includes the super-viral speech by MP Mahua Moitra as well as the chants of “Vande Mataram” during various swearing-ins.The panel then talks about the recent case of lynching of a Muslim man in Jharkhand who was beaten up and forced to chant “Jai Shri Ram”. Abhinandan found the coverage of this case to be “deeply problematic” and noted that “what-aboutery has become almost a legitimate argument” on primetime shows. Anand talks about the culture of mob justice in India and how it’s fueling communal lynchings.Moving to the water crisis in Chennai, the panel discusses its effects as well as the solutions that could help alleviate this problem. Anand discusses the urban/rural divide on this issue while Salil talks about steps taken in other countries that have had an actual effect on the wa