NL Hafta

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Anand Vardhan, Manisha Pande, and Raman Kirpal are joined by Aunindyo Chakravarty, a former senior managing editor at NDTV India and NDTV Profit who currently works with NewsClick.

The discussion begins with the transcripts of the purported WhatsApp chats between Republic’s Arnab Goswami and former BARC CEO Partho Dasgupta. Abhinandan says, “I think Arnab hasn’t denied these chats and he has had more than enough time to. Neither have any of the other players denied the chats saying that these are nonsense, ‘this has not been said by us’.”

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This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Raman Kirpal are joined by former Newslaundry reporter Rahul Kotiyal, who currently works with Dainik Bhaskar. 

Starting off with new developments in the farmer protests at the borders of Delhi, Raman talks about how the Supreme Court’s order to stay the implementation of the farm laws might impact the protests. The conversation also spans WhatsApp’s new privacy policy, the recent stock trading fraud by a CNBC Awaaz anchor, and Donald Trump’s impeachment.

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This week on NL Hafta, it's an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan, and Jayashree Arunachalam.

The conversation starts with the big news of Trump supporters storming the Capitol in Washington DC. Abhinandan and Raman discuss the news coverage and the speech Trump made prior to the siege. The panelists also discuss the stand that the American media took on the issue, the attack on journalists, and how social media banned Trump.

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This week on NL Hafta, it's an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Jayashree Arunachalam.

The conversation starts with Mehraj explaining how the recently concluded District Development Council elections in Kashmir were aimed primarily at "depoliticising" the region's politics.

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by Priyanka Pulla, an independent journalist, and Jammi N Rao, an independent public health physician.

The conversation begins with the detection of new strains of Covid in the UK and South Africa. Jammi points out that the two variants are “very different” with different mutations. He believes it was the “hard work of the scientists” that led to it being found in the UK first, and also because the UK has “one of the most advanced labs in the world”. 

Manisha asks Priyanka about the highs and lows of the Indian government’s response to the pandemic. “There was too much denial regarding Covid,” Priyanka says. “Till date, the government has not agreed to community transmission.” India did “ramp-up tests when we got down to it”, she says, but communication was a big failure on the part of the government.

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This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kripal and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by Patricia Mukhim, the editor of the Shillong Times. 

The conversation begins with Patricia explaining why she resigned from the Editors Guild of India. The guild had shown her no support when she was targeted for questioning the authorities over inaction in a case of ethnic discrimination and violence in Meghalaya.

She also explains the importance of the Bodoland Territorial Council in protecting the rights of the Bodo community in Assam. She praises the change in leadership of the council from Hagrama Mohilary to Pramod Boro, and says it will help bring peace to the community.

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Timecodes

2:37 - Headlines

6:08 - Farmer's Protest

21:59 - Arvind Kejriwal on House Arrest

30:48 - Love Jihad

35:15 - Central Vista Project

50:44 - Jallikattu Goes For Oscar

52:35 - DGCI Asks Serum And Bharat Biotech For More Data And NDTV Fake News

1:09:50 - Love Jihad

1:13:21 - Subscriber Mails

1:26:55 - Recommendations

This week Newslaundry panel’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Jayashree Arunachalam and Anand Vardhan are joined by Asmita Nandy, a journalist with The Quint. 

The conversation starts with the ongoing farmers' protest.  The panel discusses how similar laws have impacted Bihar’s farmers. Anand believes that “farmers in Bihar have not shown disagreement to this bill.” Asmita talks about how discontent against the Ambanis and Adanis has always existed. The panel also discusses the various criticisms that surround the new farm laws. Jayashree believes that the actual problem is “breaking down an existing structure without knowing how to replace it.” 

The discussion then moves on to the Central Vista Project, the recently held foundation laying ceremony, and the Prime Minister’s speech that followed the event. Abhinandan believes that the PM, in his speech, “sold the construction of the new Parliament building so well, that the Supreme Court will not be able to give a verdict against the construction.” Raman agrees and adds, “Everything seems to be dictated by only one person.” Jayashree also brings up the timing of the ‘bhumi pujan’ saying it was very deliberately made to coincide with the farmers’ protest.

The conversation moves on to NDTV’s report on how the Serum Institute and Bharat Biotech proposals for "emergency vaccine use" were not cleared over "inadequate safety and efficacy data". The fact-checking wing of the government's Press Information Bureau claimed NDTV's report was "fake" even though the same news was reported by other media houses. Jayashree brings up the “too much democracy” fiasco and the panel discusses if this shows that the government is restricting media houses. 

The panel also discusses social media, Love Jihad and a lot more.

Tune in!

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Timecodes

04:35  -  Headlines

09:15  -  Farmer protests

13:01  -  Media coverage of farmer protests

1:04:03  -  Rajinikanth to launch political party in January

1:05:43  -  UN secretary general Antonio Gutteres’ speech on the environment

1:09:26  -  Amit Malviya's tweet flagged on Twitter

1:22:20  -  Subscriber mails

1:43:13  -  Recommendations

This week on NL Hafta, it’s an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, Raman Kirpal, and our reporter Nidhi Suresh, who has been covering the farmer protests at Delhi’s borders. 

The conversation starts with how the TV news media covered the protests, and the pushback against “Godi media” by protesters. Describing the nature of the coverage, Manisha says: “It’s the same thing that they’ve been doing for a while now, and we’ve seen this from the CAA protests onwards. Essentially, what these channels do is: they go to these protest sites, they’ll find one or two controversial bites or speak to people who are probably not aware of the bill or would, in their excitement, say something. Then they’ll just play that on loop to tar the entire protest.” 

Mehraj agrees. “This is from the textbook of propaganda,” he says. “This is exactly what they did during the CAA protests also...If there are lakhs of people on the street, just like in society, you will find people who have different ideas. Some of them will be extremists, some of them will also be unsavoury characters. But you will pick up this one person and then the whole argument will become about that person.”

Appreciating the regional media’s coverage of the protests, Abhinandan says, “I have consumed a lot of Punjabi media in the last two or three weeks and I must say there is some very good and informed reportage happening. And I am surprised that the English and the Hindi media is so clueless about stuff.” 

Drawing from her experience on the ground, Nidhi says, “One thing they [the farmers] are very, very angry about is the framing of the narrative by the Centre, the media, and the politicians around the necessity for these laws. The Centre has constantly been saying that this is a pro-farmer bill.” She adds that the farmers on the ground say they never asked for these laws. 

On Twitter flagging BJP’s Amit Malviya’s tweet as “manipulated media”, Raman says Twitter reacted “too late”. “We have been seeing fake news being spread by these politicians so often and by so many of them,” he says. “I don’t know why they have reacted now.”

The panel also discusses fake news and misinformation on social media, the UN chief’s recent address on climate change, and much more.

Tune in!

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Timecodes

4:14 - Headlines

7:51 - Cyclone Nivar hits Chennai and Puducherry

14:43 - Kerala withdraws Police Act amendment

28:57 - Farmer protests

44:05 - Jallikattu goes to the Oscars

47:24 - UP brings ‘love jihad’ ordinance

1:12:15 - ED summons Shiv Sena MLA

1:16:57 - Subscriber mail

1:27:47 - Sushil Modi accuses Lalu Prasad Yadav of running political show from behind bars

1:32:23 - Recommendations

This week on NL Hafta, it is an all-Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Anand Vardhan.

The discussion opens with Jayashree talking about the Tamil Nadu government’s response to Cyclone Nivar. Comparing it with the handling of the 2015 Chennai floods, she says, “The government response, clearly learning its lessons from the past, has been great. As early as November 23, they had gotten in place national disaster relief forces...relief camps were set up, and the communication from the government has been extremely clear. This was one of their huge failures during the Chennai floods.”

Speaking about the Kerala government withdrawing the controversial Kerala Police Act amendment that sought to punish anyone who posted social media content “with an intention to intimidate, insult or defame any person”, Abhinandan says, “This is what separates the political left in India from the political right. I know for a fact that several spokespersons of the left parties refused to come on news panels defending this...and because of the backlash they withdrew it whereas the political right in India don’t give a fuck. You can keep jumping, but if Modi has given the nod everybody will fall in line and say it’s a great idea!”

Responding to Abhinandan, Anand says, “No, in universities and academia, the political left is as intolerant as the political right. I think it has to do with their disciplinarian, cadre-based organizations. You have more to lose in a cadre-based organization if you go against the line.”

Talking about the ongoing farmer protests, Raman says, “I am all for this protest. Of course, protest is an integral part of democracy and it should happen but you should see the protest that happened around Delhi, there was so much hooliganism.”

Manisha concurs, “Yeah, that has to be stopped. I mean the Jat protests were famously known for complete vandalism, looting and even molestation.”

The panel also discuss the “love jihad” ordinance passed by the Uttar Pradesh government and the Indian judiciary’s handling of “forcible conversions” cases. 

Tune in!

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Timecodes

00:00 - Introduction and headlines

11:18 - The current race for vaccines

28:22 - Freedom of speech and state of Indian media

01:04:12 - Subscriber letters

01:20:39 - India not being part of the RCEP

01:27:53 - Chitra and Smita’s recommendations

01:36:52 - Subscriber letters

01:59:21 - Recommendations

In this week’s Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Smita Prakash, editor-in-chief of ANI, and Chitra Subramaniam, journalist and co-founder of the News Minute.

The conversation kicks off with the recent developments around Covid vaccines. Chitra says: “I have the sense that China is going to emerge with some kind of a people’s vaccine...If they come up with a vaccine that’s universally affordable and the price point is right, I don’t see why any country will not take it.”

On the state of the media today, Smita says, “The media itself has changed. You had 100-150 newspapers and one Doordarshan and All India Radio which were state-owned..." She adds: “There are many sites which are looking at news, not just as ‘we’ll take on the government or policy’. There are many more stories to do...Now, it’s no longer just reporting, it’s content creation.”

The discussion moves on to the Indian government’s attempts to regulate the media. Mehraj says, “The government, the judiciary is asking for more regulation, also because self-regulation has pretty much failed in India. The Press Council of India and the News Broadcasting Standards Authority have been reduced to making statements. They are no longer regulators but just bodies who issue statements.”

The panel also discusses how Covid has broken class barriers, India’s decision to not join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as an alternative to Trump, and a lot more.

Tune in!

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