For this episode of Reporters without Orders, host Snigdha Sharma is joined by Newslaundry correspondents Basant Kumar and Veena Nair to talk about important, and bizarre, news stories of the week, and media activism in India. Basant talks about the Haryana Assembly election, “Kingmaker” Dushyant Chautala, and the erosion in the support of the once formidable Indian National Lok Dal. Veena analyses the political drama in Maharashtra, where the Shiv Sena is insisting that the BJP agree to rotating the chief ministership between the two allies.They also discuss US President Donald Trump’s cryptic message – “something very big has happened” – to announce the death of the ISIS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and his description of the involved in the operation as “a beautiful, strong dog who came back”. As to the bizarre news of the week, the panel mention the headline of The Washington Post's obituary of al-Baghdadi – “An austere religious scholar at the helm of Islamic State” – and the hashtag trend #wapodeathnotice where Twitter users began writing obituary notices for infamous historical characters such as Adolf Hitler. The India media’s coverage of Hindutva leader Kamlesh Tiwari’s murder, the failure of a section of the Kerala media to abide by journalistic ethics in the Allen Stanley case, and media activism in India are other topics of discussions in this episode.For this and more, tune in.

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