Newslaundry Podcast

This week’s NL Hafta features an in-house panel with Anand Vardhan, Abhinandan Sekhri, Madhu Trehan, and Manisha Pande. We discuss the No Confidence Motion, the Alwar lynching, the Maratha reservation protests, and the recently concluded Pakistan elections.The panel opens with a discussion on the Pakistan elections. Anand offers his views, “What would also be a bit difficult for him, is that he is not controlling Punjab... I think Imran is a creature of ambition, he will not go away without taking his trophy. He took it at the cost of being controlled by the Army.”Madhu adds, “The saddest part about Pakistan is that nobody has been able to dislodge the army, whether it’s a dictator or behind-the-scenes.”Anand then speaks on how cow protection became a political process. "I think it is the result of a very fragile social contract between a community which considers cow as a food and a community which considers it as a bovine resource and a religious deity also. “I think lynching is mainstream, and it has nothi