In this week’s episode, host Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by Anand Vardhan, Washington Post's India correspondent Niha Masih, and Sneha Koshy, the head of NDTV's Kerala bureau. The podcast starts with the panel’s take on BBC’s report on Kashmir, which was rumoured to be untrue. Niha was in Kashmir for five days and she talks about the communication shutdown there, also describing how restrictions on movement for the media was different on each day. Abhinandan asks: “Why does a Washington Post correspondent get a curfew pass [while] a HT bureau chief who has been working for three decades in Kashmir is denied one?” Niha responds, “It was not my pass, but I was travelling with someone who had a curfew pass. But a lot of people said that the local Kashmiri journalists found it harder to get curfew passes, but the ones from Delhi found it easier.” Abhinandan expresses how he felt about the sound of bullet firings in the BBC video. Anand points out: “It could be a deliberate message to suppress information and then release it later.” He urges the audience and the panel to read his piece on Kashmir to have a clearer view of the limitations of constitutional patriotism and why the claims of the nation-state are still thriving.Moving to the Pehlu Khan case verdict, Anand feels the problem in India is “more of mob justice than about mob lynching”. About the recurring floods in Kerala and most of South India, Sneha explains how environmental exploitation and urbanisation has taken a toll on Kerala. Paddy plantation in Kerala has seen a downward graph, and the sustenance of the growth of paddy has also become an issue. She describes how mono-cropping is becoming a huge challenge.The panel then discusses Sonia Gandhi stepping up as the interim president of the Indian National Congress. Anand says charisma or tradition is the appeal of leadership. Abhinandan feels there is no representation in the Congress and jokes that the party should get Kanhaiya Kumar as president, saying: “In today’s’ day and age, a good speaker is what you need.”For more, tune in!

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