NL Hafta

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Manisha Pande are joined by Sudhir Suryawanshi, assistant editor at the New Indian Express.

Sudhir takes the panel through the “drug bust” on the cruise ship in Mumbai and how the Narcotics Control Bureau works.He also explains how the Aryan Khan case has “drawn the line between how things work and how they are preferably ignored with the help of power”.

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This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by historian S Irfan Habib.

In the context of Fabindia’s ad campaign “Jashn-e-Riwaz”, which the company withdrew after backlash, Irfan points out that Urdu is not a religious language. “This whole association of language with religion is a political agenda,” he says. He also explains how languages survive when they’re “linked with bread and butter”.

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This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Manisha Pande are joined by Kashmir-based journalist, Azaan Javaid. They discuss the civilian killings in Kashmir and the fear among minority Hindus and Sikhs. “A lot of families have left but we don’t have the exact number because it is an embarrassment for the government as well,” says Azaan. 

Azaan also talks about the media in Kashmir has been covering the killings and the state of press freedom in the Valley, “They would talk about meat pickles rather than focus on real issues,” he says.

To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry.

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This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Manisha Pande are joined by Rohan Venkat, deputy editor at Scroll, and Shivam Vij, columnist at Gulf News.

The conversation starts with Modi’s visit to the United States and how Indian TV news made it a topic of celebration. Rohan points out that it wasn’t “just an India-US story or about how the two countries met; the actual deal was the Quad summit.”

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This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Manisha Pande are joined by Aunindyo Chakravarty, journalist and former managing editor of NDTV Profit, and independent journalist Vrinda Gopinath. 

The discussion kicks off with recent data on layoffs and job losses in the media industry and what led to the losses. Aunindyo talks about how these layoffs are not related to Covid but have been happening since 2018. “Almost 78 percent of jobs were lost in the media and publishing industry in five years,” he says. 

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Timecodes

2:42 - Headlines

14:25 - Tamil Nadu’s NEET bill

32:09 - IT ‘surveys’ at Newslaundry and Newsclick

56:55 - Subscriber mails

1:18:43- Recommendations

This week on NL Hafta, it’s the in-house panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Mehraj D Lone.

They discuss Tamil Nadu’s bill exempting state board students from the national medical entrance test NEET, and what led to the government bringing it. Jayashree and Mehraj explain how and why standardised tests such as NEET tend to disadvantage students from poor and marginalised communities. 

The discussion then moves to last week’s Income Tax “surveys” targeting Newslaundry and Newsclick. Abhinandan provides a brief account of the day the ‘survey’ happened at Newslaundry and kickstarts a discussion about how the institutions of state operate in India and how they wield the power they have over the public. 

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Recommendations

Jayashree

Madhouse at the End of the Earth: The Belgica's Journey into the Dark Antarctic Night

Raman

Goodnight, and Goodluck

Amrullah Saleh: The last man standing against Taliban

Manisha

Billions

Mehraj

Day of reckoning for the media handmaidens of war

He spent his adult life helping U.S. soldiers. Now, he’s desperately fleeing Afghanistan

Abhinandan

This Is Your Brain On Drug Ads

September 11th, 20 Years of chaos

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This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kripal and Manisha Pande of Newslaundry are joined by Suhasini Haidar, diplomatic affairs editor of the Hindu. 

They discuss the situation in Afghanistan and how media platforms have been covering it. Suhasini points out that considering the risks involved in going to the ground, most foreign journalists have been relying on activists and a few reporters who are still in the country to get a sense of what’s happening. Some foreign journalists such as Lyse Doucet and Sikander Krimani, however, have been able to report from the ground with the aid of security agencies and advisors, she says.

Recommendations

Suhasini

Quest for a Stable Afghanistan: A View From Ground Zero  

Antonio Giustozzi: The Taliban at War

Antonio Giustozzi: The Islamic State of Khorasan 

The favored daughter: One woman’s fight to lead Afghanistan 

Fawzia Koofi: Letters to My Daughters 

Raman

Paul Theroux: Tao of Travel 

Upcoming Newslaundry story on Osho Ashram. 

Manisha

This is What Winning Looks Like 

9/11 and the War on Terror 

The Other Afghan Women 

Abhinandan

All you need to know about the new Taliban government 

Two Indicators: Water Pressure 

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This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Anand Vardhan are joined by Govindraj Ethiraj, the founder of IndiaSpend and BOOM.

The conversation begins with the floods in Bihar and Assam. While these usually dominate headlines every year, this year there’s been very little attention from the mainstream media. “Only local media has been reporting on it,” Anand says, “and there have been lives lost, but maybe because of the Taliban, it has not been in the headlines.”

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This week on NL Hafta, Ahinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone are joined by Josy Joseph, an investigative journalist and author of The Silent Coup.

Josy explains the central idea of his book, that India is in the hold of the “Deep State”, by citing the “actual Gujarat Model” that Narendra Modi implemented nationally after taking power in New Delhi. “Those officers who are willing to serve the causes of their political masters have great careers," he says, explaining the model. He points out, by way of an example, how the police officials who investigated the Godhra train fire and subsequent anti-Muslim carnage in Modi’s Gujarat went on to have national careers.

To listen to the full episode, subscribe to Newslaundry.

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