In Focus by The Hindu

Reporting during this election, the first in the age of COVID-19, presents a number of challenges for journalists covering the campaigns. Among the biggest is that while the Election Commission has presented a number of guidelines, election time is pretty much a festival on its own that brings with it many associated challenges. On Wednesday, October 21, for instance, the EC had to reiterate its guidelines for campaigning during the pandemic, noting that many parties and candidates in Bihar, which is going to the polls frmo October 28, had been lax in maintaining discipline in terms of crowd size. Shedding light on this and other aspects of covering this election is The Hindu’s Political Editor Nistula Hebbar, who has just returned from a reporting tour in Bihar, to tell us what she saw and experienced on the ground.

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Over the weekend, there was some significant news in the form of a modelling study conducted by a seven-member expert panel, constituted by the government, on the future course of the pandemic. The headline conclusion of the report is that India has passed its COVID-19 peak, and that if current trends continue there will be minimal cases by February.

In this episode, we’re going to explore those conclusions made by the committee. We’ll examine whether the optimism is justified or there are factors which we still need to keep a very close watch on that could easily derail some of the progress the country has made in the last few weeks.

Our guest today is Gautam Menon, Professor of Physics and Biology at Ashoka university. He has a keen interest in the modelling of infectious diseases and its implications for public policy. He has been part of a prominent group of Indian scientists who have come up with detailed mathematical modelling on the progression of the disease.

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The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage, but office and public places have begun to reopen after months of closure under the various “unlock guidelines” released by the Central government. On October 5, the Ministry of Education issued detailed guidelines for the gradual reopening of schools from October 15 but stated that no student would be forced to attend against their parent’s consent. We take a look at how the pandemic has affected education, how feasible it is for schools to comply with all the safety guidelines, what they can do to ensure that students catch up with their education, and what the potential for digital education is in the country.

Host: Zubeda Hamid

Guest: Rukmini Banerji, Chief Executive Officer of Pratham Education Foundation.

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In this second part of a two-episode series on the Nobel Prizes, we go into the Chemistry and Physics 2020 awarded to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna, for discovering one of gene technology’s sharpest tools — the CRISPR/Cas9 “genetic scissors”.

And for Physics, British mathematician-physicist Roger Penrose received half of this year’s prize “for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”, as the the Nobel Committee put it. German Reinhard Genzel and American Andrea Ghez received the second half of the prize “for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy.” We explain the science behind both awards.

Guest: T.V. Venkateshwaran, Science Communicator, Senior Scientist at Vigyan Prasar, New Delhi.

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In the first of two episodes, we look at this year‘s Nobel prize in Physiology or Medicine awarded to Harvey J. Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles M. Rice for their discovery of the Hepatitis C virus. The Nobel announcement said the Prize had been given to “three scientists who have made a decisive contribution to the fight against blood-borne hepatitis, a major global health problem that causes cirrhosis and liver cancer in people around the world”. We explain why the work of the three scientists is crucial and how they built on each other’s work.

Guest: T.V. Venkateshwaran, Science Communicator, Senior Scientist at Vigyan Prasar, New Delhi.

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In the previous episode, we went into the origin and evolution of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act to understand India’s drug laws in relation to our attitudes towards punishment and sentencing. Here, we go into the idea of legalisation — in particular, marijuana, which offers comparisons with other countries, such as the United States. In India, certain parts of the marijuana plant are allowed for commercial use while others are not. So, we look at prominent international examples to home in on where the discourse on the subject — in our courts, Parliament, in research — currently stands in India.

Tripti Tandon is a practising lawyer who works on drug policies and is associated with Lawyers Collective, a New Delhi–based NGO that works on promoting human rights.

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The Sushant Singh Rajput case — more particularly, its coverage in some instances — has thrown up issues concerning the use of drugs and the attitudes of the law and the media on the subject. In this episode, we look at how the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPSA) has evolved since its introduction in 1985. Over the years, there have been voices stressing the need for a more rational approach to punishment and sentencing with respect to drug possession and quantities.

This episode’s guest, Tripti Tandon, is a practising lawyer who works on drug policies and is associated with Lawyers Collective, a New Delhi–based NGO that works on promoting human rights.

Also, stay tuned for the second part of this discussion, which goes into the issue of legalising marijuana, and looks at prominent international examples to home in on where the discourse currently stands in India.

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The Foreign Ministers of India, the U.S., Japan and Australia met on Tuesday in Tokyo to set the agenda for the Quad grouping, at a time when its members are dealing with an increasingly difficult relationship with China. Are the four countries on the same page when it comes to China? What are the main take-aways from the Tokyo meeting, and where does the group go from here?

Guest: Hiroyuki Akita, commentator on foreign affairs in Tokyo

Host: Ananth Krishnan, Beijing Correspondent, The Hindu

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Here’s a quick explainer on the clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan where the violence is has entered its fourth day. Fresh clashes erupted on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border on Sunday, and it’s threatening to push the countries back to war 26 years after a ceasefire was reached.

The conflict between these two former Soviet republics has wider geopolitical implications as Turkey, which shares a border with Armenia, is backing Azerbaijan, while Russia, which has good ties with both countries, has called for a ceasefire. Chatting with Jayant Sriram, The Hindu’s International Affairs Editor Stanly Johny delves into the conflict and the large geopolitical implications today.

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Earlier this week, Parliament passed three new laws on social security, industrial relations and occupational safety that subsumed 25 Central labour laws. Along with the wage code that was passed in 2019 the NDA government has now merged 29 different labour laws into four codes and this is something that was badly needed because India’s labour laws are famously complicated and jumbled, and the demand for bringing in more clarity has been longstanding. But what changes do these codes bring to the existing laws and what are the ramifications? Among the key changes are the greater flexibility afforded to employers in hiring and firing workers, the provisions for expanding the social security net to informal workers, albeit not completely, the recognition of new categories of workers such as gig workers, and something of a reduction in the influence of trade unions. So many of these are far-reaching changes and we’ll discuss the most relevant ones. Guest: Roshni Sinha, Senior Analyst, PRS Legislative Research Find the In Focus podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Stitcher. Search for In Focus by The Hindu.

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