This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry’s Anmol Pritam and The News Minute’s Nidhi Suresh.

While the rest of the country exhaled a sigh of relief at the announcement of a ceasefire in the India-Pakistan conflict, Poonch held its breath – and bled quietly.  

Nidhi and Anmol were on the ground, when the cross-border shelling began. Thirteen lives were lost. Thirteen names that won’t make it into strategic briefings or celebration speeches. Parents buried their twins, Zain Ali and Urwa Fatima – born five minutes apart, and died  five minutes apart. In another home, a wedding that was about to be planned turned into a funeral when the father of the bride-to-be never came home.

These aren’t just tragic anecdotes. This is the aftermath of a conflict that never really ends for the people living on its edge. Nidhi and Anmol’s reports on the families in both the city and the villages reveal that all of them carry the same expression – numb, disbelief, and tired of being forgotten. Their stories don’t scream, they ache. And in that ache lies a quiet question: why is Poonch always left behind?

They came back with more than interviews. They came back with grief, with names, with stories that deserve to be told. Stories of loss, of resilience, of people who live through war long after the last gun falls silent.

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Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:02:15 - From Tension to Tranquility: Ceasefire was announced

00:09:34 - Shelling without Warning: The Unseen Threat Lurked in Poonch

00:36:56 - Misinformation flooded in mainstream  and social media 

00:43: 58 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Nidhi

Society Girl: A Tale of Sex, Lies, and Scandal  

Anmol

Saving Private Ryan

Basant

American Man Hunt: Osama Bin Laden 

Produced and edited by Hassan Bilal, Ashish Anand and Tista Roy Chowdhury, recorded by Anil Kumar.

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

This week, host Pratyush Deep is joined by Newslaundry’s Prateek Goyal and Drishti Choudhary.

Prateek and Drishti have reported on the fake news being peddled on social media during the India-Pakistan conflict, following Operation Sindoor. Both of them closely tracked the misinformation campaign run on both sides of the border and analysed the deeper implications of this information warfare. 

Prateek’s report looked at how Pakistan weaponised disinformation against India by underplaying aggression, claiming victimhood, and sowing seeds of disunity and repurposing it for the age of AI. Drishti, on the other hand, spoke to digital experts to report on how “misinformation and propaganda” was passed off under the garb of information warfare in India. 

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Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:46 - Misinformation against India

00:16:20 - Misinformation against Pakistan

00:27:11 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Drishti

Guthlee Ladoo

Prateek

Spy Stories

Pratyush

Is the reign of the dollar over?

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.

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

This week, host Shivnarayan Rajpurohit is joined by Newslaundry’s Pratyush Deep and reporter Ankita Dhar Karmakar.

Pratyush reported on the mining mafia that built two illegal roads through forests and farms in the Aravallis. He explains how this violated rules and regulations, and it “enables the mining mafia to exploit the location and situation”, given its geographical location. “This illegal mining is not just done by mafias but also a nexus of local politicians and some government administrations are involved,” he says. 

Ankita talks about her report on the falling standards of Delhi School of Journalism, established with the hope of being India’s Columbia School of Journalism. She says it’s plagued by poor infrastructure, ill-equipped classrooms and high fees. She also explains how over half of its governing body is populated by members linked to the BJP or RSS.

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Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:13 - Mining mafia in the Aravallis 

00:06:42 - Delhi School of Journalism

00:33:23 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Ankita

What Killed Mukesh Chandrakar

Pratyush

An elephant never forgets his phandi

Shivnarayan

2 roads expose how forests, farms and laws were flattened for Aravallis’ mining mafia

Repression, Hindutva and the fall of Delhi School of Journalism

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.

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

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by independent journalists Tanzil Asif, Neetu Singh and Sagar Patel, who talk about working in mainstream media, why they quit it and decided to go independent. 

Legacy media, Tanzil says, only focuses on feeding their agenda rather than serving public interest, making a journalist morally corrupt. Neetu explains that mainstream media restricted her freedom to report because it lacked the guts to hold the government accountable. Some reporters, however, are just fooling people by pretending to be independent journalists, remarks Sagar. 

They talk of their challenges in opting to work in independent media after exiting mainstream media. Despite lack of resources, hurdles in reporting and problems in their establishing and running their organisations, they say their decision to quit legacy media was most satisfactory.

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Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:02:02 - Reasons for exiting mainstream media

00:12:28 - Challenges for independent media

00:23:24 - Hurdles for being independent journalist

00:56:48 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Neetu

Pahalgam Attack में मारे गए Shubham Dwivedi की पत्नी Aishanya Dwivedi ने हमले के बारे में क्या बताया

Sagar 

કણબી પટેલોના નાક વાઢવાની હચમચાવી દે તેવી કહાણી| Journalist Naresh Shah | Patidar Samaj History Video

Shatranj

Tanzil

Common People

BAKKHO Documentary | A Pasmanda Muslim Story | बक्खो | पसमांदा मुस्लिम की कहानी | Bihar Caste Census

Basant

What Killed Mukesh Chandrakar - The Reporters' Collective

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.

Complaining about the media is easy. Why not do something to make it better? Click here to subscribe to Newslaundry and join the tribe that pays to keep news free.

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

This week, host Sumedha Mittal is joined by The News Minute’s Anjana Meenakshi and Newslaundry’s Shivnarayan Rajpurohit.

Anjana talks about her report on Isha home schools being run by Jaggi Vasudev, where alleged cases of molestation and sexual assault unfolded. She explains how these misconducts led to traumatic experiences for some, but there is a lack of a grievance redressing mechanism within the organisation. She finds the functional body of the school to be an absurd way of spiritual business.

Shivnarayan reported on the legal fight between electronic companies and the government in the Delhi High Court over the new e-waste policy. Some electronic companies like Havells, Voltas, Dainkin, Hitachi, Bluestar, LG, and Samsung challenged the Indian government’s 2024 amendment to e-waste management rules, where the government fixed the minimum and maximum price caps for recycling their waste to meet their recycling targets. Companies argue that the government’s decision is arbitrary. 

Tune in.

Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:23 - Isha home schools

00:16:38 - E-waste case

00:30:11 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Anjana

A Tale of Two Cities

Supreme Whispers: Supreme Court Judges

Shivnarayan

‘Thought they were Army, but they opened fire’: Survivors recount Pahalgam horror

Sumedha

A storm brews at Isha Foundation: Sexual assault allegations and countercharges

Church and State

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.

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

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by independent journalist Vishnu Narayan.

Vishnu breaks down how political parties are gearing up for a high-voltage election in Bihar. He analyses how political players are trying to finetune their strategies to get different caste groups on their side. He also talks about former civil servants jumping into the political arena and how that can affect the fortunes of the parties in the fray.

He sheds light on how the incumbent chief minister’s age will affect his party’s prospects. “Like him or not, you can’t ignore him,” Vishnu says about CM Nitish Kumar. 

Tune in.

Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:52 - Political slugfest in Bihar

00:44:37 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Vishnu 

Kitna Raj, Kitna Kaj

JP to BJP

Basant

द जननायक Karpoori Thakur: वॉयस ऑफ वॉयसलेस किताब के लेखक Santosh Singh से बातचीत

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.

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

This week, host Anmol Pritam is joined by Newslaundry’s Shivanarayan Rajpurohit, independent journalists Ashfaque EJ and Saurabh Kumar.  

Shivnarayan talks about his report that uncovers how an Adani subsidiary gained access to its controversial power plant site in Uttar Pradesh’s Mirzapur through a forest department road – without obtaining the required forest clearance that would precede such arrangements. “Experts say that the project and road leading up to it will cause a lot of damage to the surrounding flora and fauna,” he says.

Saurabh and Ashfaque’s documentary follows five of the 18 anti-CAA activists accused of orchestrating violence during the 2020 Delhi riots.

“Through our documentary, we wanted to show that the Delhi police, to cover up its inefficiency in containing the violence during the 2020 Delhi unrest, booked these activists,” says Saurabh. He adds that the FIRs against the activists is not based on “concrete proof” and has “several loopholes”.

Tune in. 

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

This week, host Pratyush Deep is joined by Newslaundry’s Priyanka Ishwari and The Quint’s Tanishka Sodhi.

They talk about their story on Outlook’s transformation from a news magazine that once reported hard-hitting stories and exposed some of India’s biggest scandals to a magazine that focuses more on features, poetry now. 

Priyanka says several former Outlook journalists haven’t read the magazine in ages “because they don’t think it makes any noise anymore”. 

Noting that Outlook hadn’t been doing great work after Vinod Mehta’s editorship ended in 2015, Tanishka says under its current editor, Chinki Sinha, the magazine has taken even a “more unpleasant turn”.

She also talks about her interview with comedian Daniel Fernandes in the wake of the Kunal Kamra controversy. She notes that even though the comedy landscape is booming, space for political comedy is shrinking because “people are scared”.

Tune in.

Timecodes

00:00:00 – Introduction

00:01:24 – Outlook’s vanishing edge

00:23:15 – State of political comedy 

00:33:28 – Recommendations

Recommendations

Tanishka

Many adults take BCG vaccine in city not knowing they’re part of govt study

Scripted Videos by Content Creators Fuel Communal Discord and False Narratives

Priyanka

Uttarakhand first settlers: Full episode-1 | Series सभ्यता

Pratyush

Outlook’s vanishing edge: How a bold magazine lost its bite

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.

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

This week, host Shivnarayan Rajpurohit is joined by Newslaundry’s Sumedha Mittal and independent journalist Anand Mangnale.

Sumedha and Anand break down their investigation on Kiran Bedi’s use of public resources for surveilling her daughter. They say the decorated IPS officer not only “misused her powers in doing so”, but also covered up her alleged misdeeds by presenting herself as a “helpless, concerned mother”.

Kiran Bedi left “no room for differentiation between helping somebody and breaking the law for them,” they add.

Tune in.

Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:01:39 - Kiran Bedi Tapes

00:25:35 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Anand

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World

Sumedha

After NL-TNM story, Kiran Bedi makes ‘concerned mother’ claims, silent on Swiss diplomat’s rape

Shivnarayan

The RSS: A Menace to India

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.

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

This week, host Sumedha Mittal is joined by Newslaundry’s Prateek Goyal and Drishti Choudhary.

Prateek explains the Nagpur violence that resulted in the damage of several vehicles and shops, the injury of 33 police officers, and a division among the communities. He says the violence was “just a sample of radical mindsets” and that extremists fueled by “ego” mobilised the mob.

Drishti talks about the phenomenon of AI anchors in Indian newsrooms, and why this model “is not working”. She also explains how these anchors are ‘stereotyped’. 

Tune in.

Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:00:38 - Nagpur violence

00:11:52 - AI anchors in the newsroom

00:22:44 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Drishti

The Palace of Illusions: A Novel

Prateek

Chhava

Sumedha

The costs of Reliance’s wildlife ambitions

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.

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