Truth vs Hype

This week, a special edition of Truth vs Hype from inside Hungary, a country which more than any other, embodies the fault lines within Europe on how to tackle the crisis of refugees fleeing the Syrian war. Is Hungary's hardline rhetoric on refugees justified or alarmist ? Will its extreme position now set the tone for the rest of Europe ? And as winter falls, and Europe's borders close, will it once again disrupt the tenuous calm along the border?

It has been almost two weeks since the killing of Mohammad Akhlaq of Dadri village, murdered on a rumour that he killed a calf and ate beef. Several of the BJP's top leadership have called for restraint. But the climate remains charged; violent vigilantism in the name of the cow is spreading. Are the BJP's calls for restraint sufficient to rein in violence? Or is the party's obsession with cow protection serving as a proxy endorsement of groups that use the cow card to stir sectarian tensions?

The entire attention of the world media on the refugee crisis has been concentrated on those who arrive at the doorsteps of Europe. Instead, we have chosen to take the hard road. To travel to the routes of the Syrian refugee crisis. Starting with the Turkey-Syria border where there are still millions who wait and face complex challenges that remain invisible.

Marathwada, in Maharashtra is not unfamiliar to water scarcity, but is now confronting possibly its worst ever drought. Yet lush fields of water guzzling sugarcane are a symptom of a deeper, man-made dimension to the crisis. We report on how there is a reluctance to correct the mistakes of the past - of the unfair promoting one crop over the others, of undoing the political economy that makes such inequalities possible. In many ways what we are witnessing in Marathwada, is symptomatic of tough choices that confront Indian agriculture, and the consequences of failure to remedy.

This week, we cut through the fog of claims surrounding the ban on sale of meat during the Jain sacred period in Mumbai: Is the ban a BJP creation, as everyone first assumed, or does it stretch back decades across governments? If so, why did no one hear about it? Was it simply liberal bias as the BJP claimed, or was it also the confusing way the ban was enforced? Does that let the BJP off the hook, are they too guilty of using dietary parochialism, to create divisions?

Even after 7 days of the murder of the respected scholar Professor MM Kalburgi, we are nowhere closer to knowing why he was killed, or by whom. This week on Truth vs Hype we examine some of the commonly held theories : Was he killed because of his questioning of orthodoxies in his own community of Lingayats? Or because he rubbed Hindutva -waadis the wrong way? Or was it a property dispute within his family? Or like the recent murders of other intellectual dissenters, is there a fear that his murder too, will remain inconclusive?

Three years later, the Delhi gang-rape remains the defining event for how rape is perceived in India - of women attacked by strangers on a bus or in an abandoned mill. But a new study of rape in Mumbai and new national data on rape suggest a very different reality. Close to 85-90 per cent of all recorded rapes in India are by acquaintances - friends, neighbours or family. The greater danger is not on the streets, but inside the Indian home. These are not new findings. They reinforce what has been in the public domain for long, but yet remains a collective blind spot in the fight against sexual violence.

In his Red Fort speech, PM Modi was combative in his defence of the government's black money bill, meant to bring back illicit flows abroad. But the law has triggered anxieties in corporate India who fear a witch hunt. Are the fears against the bill justified, or exaggerated? Will black money come in, or are millionaires flowing out? And is the government ignoring the roots of black money under its nose?

Yakub Memon, convicted for his role in plotting in the bomb blasts that tore through Mumbai 22 years ago, has been executed. Right until the last moment, all the questions over his guilt that had appeared settled reignited into debate: was he mastermind of the blasts or a bystander? Was he a source of valuable information to India or was there no agreement with the CBI? With his death, none of those questions may be answered, but they continue to haunt.

Yakub Memon was finally executed today for his role in plotting the 1993 bomb blasts but right until the last moment, questions remained over why his claims of having helped the CBI was never made in court. In an exclusive interview , Niteen Pradhan who helped the TADA court during the trial lays the blame on Yakub's lawyers saying they failed to make a strong case on his behalf.