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.

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