Newslaundry Podcast

In this episode of NL Hafta, host Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by Hafta regulars Anand Vardhan and Manisha Pande, and special guests Arunabh Saikia, staff writer at Scroll, and economics journalist Vivek Kaul. The discussion revolves around the Citizenship Bill, the 10 per cent Reservation Bill, Alok Verma's reinstation, the All-India Marathi Literary Meet, and more.The discussion starts with Arunabh talking about the Citizenship Bill and its impact on Assamese politics. “Is it even possible that no Indian is left out?” Abhinandan asks. The bill allows people of all religions except Islam to enter India from Bangladesh. The panel calls it explicitly anti-Muslim, even more so than Trump’s so-called “Muslim ban”.Moving on to the Reservation Bill, Vivek says, “Reservation is useful when the government is creating jobs.” He says he's been dissatisfied with the government’s job creation over the past three years. “A cut-off has to be useful,” he points out about the new quota, saying the cut-off includes so many pe