NL Hafta

On this podcast of Reporters Without Orders, we have a surprise guest joining the panel. A reporter from The Quint, Meghnad Bose, joins the panel to discuss the Kathua rape case, fire at a Rohingya refugee camp, Rahul Gandhi’s midnight march and more.

Meghnad tells us about the story that he broke on CBSE class 12 exams wherein the marks were being unfairly moderated. “A data scientist had observed a very odd marking pattern that an unbelievably high number of students in CBSE were getting the number 95." The numbers like 91, 92, 93 and 94 were obtained by 60-70k people and 195k people got the number 95. We realised that CBSE adopts a moronic system, Meghnad tells the panel.

Cherry talks about an article published by The Sunday Guardian, authored by Sushil Pandit. She says that the article should not have been published. “The editor is still defending the piece stating that it is the reporter’s right to write fiction and once you have given a disclaimer [that the story is a concotion] it's okay." But what the piece is doing, in reality, is using actual facts, actual events of an eight-year-old Kathua girl’s rape and murder to delegitimise an entire sequence of events, Cherry says.

Abhinandan adds, “Some people are saying it's a satire. I don't see the satirical bit in it.”

Cherry also spoke about that the fire at the Rohingya refugee camp where 50 shanties were burnt down. She says while it was reported upon, it did not get wall-to-wall coverage.

Rohin, who covered this incident says, “People couldn't decide whether somebody started the fire or it happened on its own. As per the police, it could have been due to a short circuit but people are saying they don't have such wires that could lead to a short-circuit. Their Burmese IDs and refugee cards from the UN were burnt down, technically they are illegal now.”

Talking about propaganda related to the Kathua case, Rohin says that it is very insensitive of people to raise questions like -- how come the girl was wearing the same clothes in pictures released before and after the death? Did she have only one set of clothes?

Meghnad feels that despite Kathua and Unnao cases receiving wall-to-wall coverage, the questions related to political leadership have not been asked.

He tells the panel more about a documentary that he made on rape culture in Haryana. He wanted to investigate why so many rapes happen. “Societal attitudes are so intensely patriarchal that it creates conditions where sexual assault against women is normalised, legitimised and justified.”

He feels that the electoral bonds that were told to be anonymous by the government did not get enough coverage. “You have gone to the extent of putting numbers there but people can't see on the face of it. I am surprised that no one picked it up.”

The panel discusses the midnight march by Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Amit calls it a “spontaneous” decision because around 9 pm, Rahul Gandhi tweeted that he will take out a march at the India Gate. Amit spoke to some members of the Congress party, who told him that they were informed about the march in the afternoon. He goes on to say that various TV channels and news portals covered it, but there was no reportage in the newspapers.

Cherry says that the crime should be talked about and not just the protest. “I don't think it is right to use a protest which is now turning into a brand to peddle your own agenda even if subtle. It is absolutely necessary to talk about that heinous crime that was perpetrated when we talk about rape."

To which Abhinandan adds, “There are certain tipping points and that tipping point is usually an incident or a specific event. "It's like the biggest problem that we had with the British was imposing a tax on salt but you can use that as a hinge to set off a bigger protest.”

To read more visit: https://bit.ly/2qIvoao

Samar Khan and Rahul Puri are back this week with their latest round-up of sports. And they have a lot in store -- Manchester City winning the Premier League, Indian Premier League (and Virat Kohli’s fate), the Formula One races and more.For Puri, Manchester City’s win was something that was just bound to happen sometime, and the title was, indeed, well deserved. The part that money might have had a play in giving the team an upper hand is undeniable, but both agree that money cannot be enough. The problems, however, that the money factor brings into the game are pointed out by Puri when he says, “What worries me about this money thing is that it won't surprise me at all if all these teams including Liverpool, increase their squads. And I don’t think that is good for football -- that all the elite players should congregate at just a few clubs. That’s not how the English game has ever been.”Regardless, whether Manchester City will be able to retain the title was a question both Khan and Puri seemed to have answered in the negative. Puri says, “Winning back-to-back titles in England is not a joke. And nobody’s won back to back since ten years.”Moving on, the duo discusses IPL and Royal Challengers Bangalore’s unwise decisions in the game. As Khan says, “Virat Kohli and the IPL just do not seem to get together. He makes unquestionable decisions about team selection. Bangalore has always struggled with the bowling attack. It just seems to be like a jinx that Kohli cannot get together for the IPL.” Partially agreeing with this view, Puri adds, “But I think that we all need to understand that IPLs and tournaments like IPL, you cannot win with two men. You need a team. Bangalore’s problem throughout is that it is not about teams.”What is it about, then? For Khan, it is more about ‘big flashy individuals.'Further, about the IPL, Khan and Puri make it a point to give a special mention to Kolkata Knight Riders -- the team that is pretty much coming together. It has Andre Russell, after all, who Khan likes to call a ‘butcher’, and Puri calls him a ‘weightlifter’. Two teams they are worried about are Delhi Daredevils and RCB. All in all, both foresee an interesting IPL season, considering they still don’t have favourites.The last topic of discussion was the Formula One races and Lewis Hamilton’s defeats. But both agree how Hamilton does not give up, and that it will be interesting to have Formula One competitive again.Tune into #JustSports for all this and much more!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Awful and Awesome is back this week to give you a dose of the latest pop cultural updates. Rajyasree and Abhinandan take you through three Hollywood trailers, two films (A Quiet Place and October), the National Awards and Beyonce’s performance at Coachella.

Starting with ‘A Quiet Place’, the duo believed it wasn’t half as good as the trailer promised. Regardless, both Sen and Sekhri did appreciate the skill required to direct and act in a horror film with minimum dialogue. Abhinandan says, “I won’t say I hated it but when you take up such a difficult job, you have got to be super brilliant to pull it off.”

Then we have Sen reviewing Shoojit Sircar’s ‘October’ alone because Abhinandan has pledged to not watch a Varun Dhawan film again (the last Dhawan film he watched was ‘Judwaa 2’, that must explain it). Sircar’s direction and Juhi Chaturvedi’s writing is back after Piku in this film. Dhawan plays a grumpy and disgruntled hotel trainee, Dan. When one of his fellow trainees goes into a coma after an accident, he suddenly finds a purpose in life. Sen finds it difficult to relate to this unusual obsession but liked the way Sircar portrays Delhi. Commenting on Varun’s acting, she says, “He has acted better than he has acted before.”

Rajyasree and Abhinandan also discuss the National awards, which started off with understandable awardees such as Newton for best Hindi film and Baahubali for best action, direction and special effect. But Sridevi getting the best actor female award for Mom, according to the two, reeked of sentimentality.

Moving on, both our reviewers were highly impressed with the trailers of ‘The Wife’ starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce, and ‘Can you ever forgive me?’ starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant. For the former, Sekhri says, “It is one of the most compelling trailers I have seen in a long time. Think it is going to be great. I hope it is not like ‘A Quiet Place’ where the trailer was 20,000 times better than the film.”

However, the two were quite unhappy with the trailer of ‘Solo’, next in the series of Star Wars. A new Star Wars film every year is a ‘money-making machine for Disney’, feels Sekhri.

Sen then discusses Beyonce's performance at Coachella and how this was the first time since 1999 that a black woman had headlined the fest. But that wasn’t the only reason why Coachella was making news. Philip Anschutz, the owner of Coachella’s parent company, is, in fact, a Republican donor and a huge supporter of anti-LGBT groups. Which has been all over the news lately. Regardless, Beyonce’s two-hour-long power-packed performance, in which she went through five outfit changes (and also nail polish changes), was definitely worth a watch.

Listen up now for all this and more at The Awful and Awesome, and as Sen rightly said, “Pay for free news and better jokes”.

The Awful and Awesome is back this week to give you a dose of the latest pop cultural updates. Rajyasree and Abhinandan take you through three Hollywood trailers, two films (A Quiet Place and October), the National Awards and Beyonce’s performance at Coachella.

Starting with ‘A Quiet Place’, the duo believed it wasn’t half as good as the trailer promised. Regardless, both Sen and Sekhri did appreciate the skill required to direct and act in a horror film with minimum dialogue. Abhinandan says, “I won’t say I hated it but when you take up such a difficult job, you have got to be super brilliant to pull it off.”

Then we have Sen reviewing Shoojit Sircar’s ‘October’ alone because Abhinandan has pledged to not watch a Varun Dhawan film again (the last Dhawan film he watched was ‘Judwaa 2’, that must explain it). Sircar’s direction and Juhi Chaturvedi’s writing is back after Piku in this film. Dhawan plays a grumpy and disgruntled hotel trainee, Dan. When one of his fellow trainees goes into a coma after an accident, he suddenly finds a purpose in life. Sen finds it difficult to relate to this unusual obsession but liked the way Sircar portrays Delhi. Commenting on Varun’s acting, she says, “He has acted better than he has acted before.”

Rajyasree and Abhinandan also discuss the National awards, which started off with understandable awardees such as Newton for best Hindi film and Baahubali for best action, direction and special effect. But Sridevi getting the best actor female award for Mom, according to the two, reeked of sentimentality.

Moving on, both our reviewers were highly impressed with the trailers of ‘The Wife’ starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce, and ‘Can you ever forgive me?’ starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant. For the former, Sekhri says, “It is one of the most compelling trailers I have seen in a long time. Think it is going to be great. I hope it is not like ‘A Quiet Place’ where the trailer was 20,000 times better than the film.”

However, the two were quite unhappy with the trailer of ‘Solo’, next in the series of Star Wars. A new Star Wars film every year is a ‘money-making machine for Disney’, feels Sekhri.

Sen then discusses Beyonce's performance at Coachella and how this was the first time since 1999 that a black woman had headlined the fest. But that wasn’t the only reason why Coachella was making news. Philip Anschutz, the owner of Coachella’s parent company, is, in fact, a Republican donor and a huge supporter of anti-LGBT groups. Which has been all over the news lately. Regardless, Beyonce’s two-hour-long power-packed performance, in which she went through five outfit changes (and also nail polish changes), was definitely worth a watch.

Listen up now for all this and more at The Awful and Awesome, and as Sen rightly said, “Pay for free news and better jokes”.

The Awful and Awesome is back this week to give you a dose of the latest pop cultural updates. Rajyasree and Abhinandan take you through three Hollywood trailers, two films (A Quiet Place and October), the National Awards and Beyonce’s performance at Coachella.Starting with ‘A Quiet Place’, the duo believed it wasn’t half as good as the trailer promised. Regardless, both Sen and Sekhri did appreciate the skill required to direct and act in a horror film with minimum dialogue. Abhinandan says, “I won’t say I hated it but when you take up such a difficult job, you have got to be super brilliant to pull it off.”Then we have Sen reviewing Shoojit Sircar’s ‘October’ alone because Abhinandan has pledged to not watch a Varun Dhawan film again (the last Dhawan film he watched was ‘Judwaa 2’, that must explain it). Sircar’s direction and Juhi Chaturvedi’s writing is back after Piku in this film. Dhawan plays a grumpy and disgruntled hotel trainee, Dan. When one of his fellow trainees goes into a coma after an accident, he suddenly finds a purpose in life. Sen finds it difficult to relate to this unusual obsession but liked the way Sircar portrays Delhi. Commenting on Varun’s acting, she says, “He has acted better than he has acted before.”Rajyasree and Abhinandan also discuss the National awards, which started off with understandable awardees such as Newton for best Hindi film and Baahubali for best action, direction and special effect. But Sridevi getting the best actor female award for Mom, according to the two, reeked of sentimentality.Moving on, both our reviewers were highly impressed with the trailers of ‘The Wife’ starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce, and ‘Can you ever forgive me?’ starring Melissa McCarthy and Richard E Grant. For the former, Sekhri says, “It is one of the most compelling trailers I have seen in a long time. Think it is going to be great. I hope it is not like ‘A Quiet Place’ where the trailer was 20,000 times better than the film.”However, the two were quite unhappy with the trailer of ‘Solo’, next in the series of Star Wars. A new Star Wars film every year is a ‘money-making machine for Disney’, feels Sekhri.Sen then discusses Beyonce's performance at Coachella and how this was the first time since 1999 that a black woman had headlined the fest. But that wasn’t the only reason why Coachella was making news. Philip Anschutz, the owner of Coachella’s parent company, is, in fact, a Republican donor and a huge supporter of anti-LGBT groups. Which has been all over the news lately. Regardless, Beyonce’s two-hour-long power-packed performance, in which she went through five outfit changes (and also nail polish changes), was definitely worth a watch.Listen up now for all this and more at The Awful and Awesome, and as Sen rightly said, “Pay for free news and better jokes”.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this podcast of Reporters Without Orders, we have a surprise guest joining the panel. A reporter from The Quint, Meghnad Bose, joins the panel to discuss the Kathua rape case, fire at a Rohingya refugee camp, Rahul Gandhi’s midnight march and more.Meghnad tells us about the story that he broke on CBSE class 12 exams wherein the marks were being unfairly moderated. “A data scientist had observed a very odd marking pattern that an unbelievably high number of students in CBSE were getting the number 95." The numbers like 91, 92, 93 and 94 were obtained by 60-70k people and 195k people got the number 95. We realised that CBSE adopts a moronic system, Meghnad tells the panel.Cherry talks about an article published by The Sunday Guardian, authored by Sushil Pandit. She says that the article should not have been published. “The editor is still defending the piece stating that it is the reporter’s right to write fiction and once you have given a disclaimer [that the story is a concotion] it's okay." But what the piece is doing, in reality, is using actual facts, actual events of an eight-year-old Kathua girl’s rape and murder to delegitimise an entire sequence of events, Cherry says.Abhinandan adds, “Some people are saying it's a satire. I don't see the satirical bit in it.”Cherry also spoke about that the fire at the Rohingya refugee camp where 50 shanties were burnt down. She says while it was reported upon, it did not get wall-to-wall coverage.Rohin, who covered this incident says, “People couldn't decide whether somebody started the fire or it happened on its own. As per the police, it could have been due to a short circuit but people are saying they don't have such wires that could lead to a short-circuit. Their Burmese IDs and refugee cards from the UN were burnt down, technically they are illegal now.”Talking about propaganda related to the Kathua case, Rohin says that it is very insensitive of people to raise questions like -- how come the girl was wearing the same clothes in pictures released before and after the death? Did she have only one set of clothes?Meghnad feels that despite Kathua and Unnao cases receiving wall-to-wall coverage, the questions related to political leadership have not been asked.He tells the panel more about a documentary that he made on rape culture in Haryana. He wanted to investigate why so many rapes happen. “Societal attitudes are so intensely patriarchal that it creates conditions where sexual assault against women is normalised, legitimised and justified.”He feels that the electoral bonds that were told to be anonymous by the government did not get enough coverage. “You have gone to the extent of putting numbers there but people can't see on the face of it. I am surprised that no one picked it up.”The panel discusses the midnight march by Congress President Rahul Gandhi. Amit calls it a “spontaneous” decision because around 9 pm, Rahul Gandhi tweeted that he will take out a march at the India Gate. Amit spoke to some members of the Congress party, who told him that they were informed about the march in the afternoon. He goes on to say that various TV channels and news portals covered it, but there was no reportage in the newspapers.Cherry says that the crime should be talked about and not just the protest. “I don't think it is right to use a protest which is now turning into a brand to peddle your own agenda even if subtle. It is absolutely necessary to talk about that heinous crime that was perpetrated when we talk about rape."To which Abhinandan adds, “There are certain tipping points and that tipping point is usually an incident or a specific event. "It's like the biggest problem that we had with the British was imposing a tax on salt but you can use that as a hinge to set off a bigger protest.”To read more visit: https://bit.ly/2qIvoao

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

जम्मू-कश्मीर कठुआ और यूपी के उन्नाव में बलात्कार की घटना और आरोपियों को सत्ता का संरक्षण, पश्चिम बंगाल में पंचायत चुनावों के स्थगित किए जाने की मांग को लेकर हिंसा, राहुल गांधी और प्रधानमंत्री का उपवास, डेटा लीक के मामले में फेसबुक मखिया मार्क जुकरबर्ग की कांग्रेस में पेशी, कुमार विश्वास को आम आदमी पार्टी के राजस्थान प्रभारी से हटाया जाना व अन्य मुद्दे इस हफ्ते न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री चर्चा के प्रमुख विषय रहे.

चर्चा में शामिल रहे वरिष्ठ पत्रकार जितेन्द्र कुमार, न्यूज़ नेशन के अभिषेक पराशर और न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री संवाददाता अमित भारद्वाज. चर्चा का संचालन किया न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री के कार्यकारी संपादक अतुल चौरसिया ने.

जम्मू-कश्मीर कठुआ और यूपी के उन्नाव में बलात्कार की घटना और आरोपियों को सत्ता का संरक्षण, पश्चिम बंगाल में पंचायत चुनावों के स्थगित किए जाने की मांग को लेकर हिंसा, राहुल गांधी और प्रधानमंत्री का उपवास, डेटा लीक के मामले में फेसबुक मखिया मार्क जुकरबर्ग की कांग्रेस में पेशी, कुमार विश्वास को आम आदमी पार्टी के राजस्थान प्रभारी से हटाया जाना व अन्य मुद्दे इस हफ्ते न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री चर्चा के प्रमुख विषय रहे.

चर्चा में शामिल रहे वरिष्ठ पत्रकार जितेन्द्र कुमार, न्यूज़ नेशन के अभिषेक पराशर और न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री संवाददाता अमित भारद्वाज. चर्चा का संचालन किया न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री के कार्यकारी संपादक अतुल चौरसिया ने.

जम्मू-कश्मीर कठुआ और यूपी के उन्नाव में बलात्कार की घटना और आरोपियों को सत्ता का संरक्षण, पश्चिम बंगाल में पंचायत चुनावों के स्थगित किए जाने की मांग को लेकर हिंसा, राहुल गांधी और प्रधानमंत्री का उपवास, डेटा लीक के मामले में फेसबुक मखिया मार्क जुकरबर्ग की कांग्रेस में पेशी, कुमार विश्वास को आम आदमी पार्टी के राजस्थान प्रभारी से हटाया जाना व अन्य मुद्दे इस हफ्ते न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री चर्चा के प्रमुख विषय रहे.चर्चा में शामिल रहे वरिष्ठ पत्रकार जितेन्द्र कुमार, न्यूज़ नेशन के अभिषेक पराशर और न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री संवाददाता अमित भारद्वाज. चर्चा का संचालन किया न्यूज़लॉन्ड्री के कार्यकारी संपादक अतुल चौरसिया ने.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Journalist Shivam Vij joins us this week to weigh in on weekly affairs along with the Hafta team. Abhinandan Sekhri, Madhu Trehan, Manisha Pande and Anand Vardhan, along with Vij, discuss TDP quitting the NDA. Abhinandan talks about the interesting history of Chandrababu Naidu's political life. Moving on, they talk about the 84th Congress plenary. What went wrong with the speeches of Rahul Gandhi and Navjot Singh Sidhu? Madhu Trehan tells us why Sidhu is not out of his mind. Apart from this, they talk about how the Cambridge Analytica controversy has rocked Indian politics. At last, they discuss Arvind Kejriwal apologising to Bikram Majithia, Nitin Gadkari and Kapil Sibal. Also, emails from our subscribers. Listen up, there is a song dedication in the end too.