NL Hafta

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 w...

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 Kas...

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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 th...

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...

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 entr...

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...

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, “...

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...

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Anand Vardhan are joined by Kriti Shah, associate fellow, strategic studies, Observer Research Foundation.  Talking about the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Kriti argues that there was never an appropriate time for America to exit the country after 20 years of war. She, however, adds that “the...

This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by Chander Shekhar Luthra, seasoned sports journalist and secretary of the Press Club of India. Talking about how sports journalism in India has been reduced to access journalism, Chander rues the passing of a time when “there was space for everyone”, from those writing about and investig...

This week on Hafta, the inhouse panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan, and Jayashree Arunachalam talk about the Tokyo Olympics, monsoon session of the parliament, and the change of guard in Karnataka.  Talking about the Olympics, Anand explains the enthusiasm around hockey as compared to other sports. Raman remarks, “Hockey was a national sport...until the rul...

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry ’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal and Mehraj Lone are joined by journalist Karma Paljor, editor-in-chief of EastMojo and co-founder of Atvi Infotainment. In the context of the recent Assam-Mizoram border conflict, the panel discusses the history of the border and the significance of the tribal identities of the Mizos. Karma says, “They’ve fought f...

Time Codes: 0:57 - Headlines 5:45 - Pegasus snooping 49:30 - Afghanistan crisis 1:24:15 - Tokyo Olympics 1:34:24 - Subscriber emails 1:54:13 - Recommendations  This week, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Manisha Pande are joined by Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of the Wire, and Happymon Jacob, author, commentator and JNU professor.  Siddharth talks about his organisation's re...

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by Vivek Kaul, author and journalist.  Vivek discusses his NL Sena investigation on India’s Covid data, pointing to inefficient health systems and the suspiciously low positive case rates in states such as Uttar Pradesh.  To listen to the full episode , subscribe to Newslaundry . Hosted on...

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, and Anand Vardhan of Newslaundry are joined by independent journalist Anumeha Yadav.  Anumeha analyses the various aspects of the Bhima Koregaon case in the wake of the activist Stan Swamy’s death in custody. Anand opines that "in this particular case, a lot of things have come down to freedom of expression". The conversat...

This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, Anand Vardhan and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Hartosh Singh Bal, political editor of the Caravan .  Hartosh begins the discussion by laying out the sociopolitical context of the communal campaign whipped up by politicians and sections of the media over the marriage of a Sikh woman with a Muslim man in Kasmir. Drawing parallel...

This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal and Jayashree Arunachalam of Newslaundry are joined by public health physician Jammi N Rao. Talking about the controversies surrounding Bharat Biotech's Covid vaccine, Covaxin, Jammi notes that the company hasn’t provided the final data yet, so “nobody can assess it".  Moving the discussion to the mega vaccination drives condu...

This week on NL Hafta, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by data journalist Rukmini S. Rukmini explains her recent findings about actual Covid death tolls in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Talking about the key insights she gleaned from looking at the data, she says, "Instead of hanging on to the notion of exceptionalism, India should have actually focused on...

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam and Anand Vardhan are joined by legal affairs expert Bhabna Das. They begin the discussion by reviewing a Goa court's judgement in the Tarun Tejpal rape case. Remarking on the court's observations about the behaviour of the former Tehelka editor's accuser soon after the incident, Bhabna asserts that "any j...

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by filmmaker and writer Rajesh Rajamani. The discussion begins with the controversy over tennis player Naomi Osaka's refusal to do a press conference at the French Open, and the nuances of sports journalism. To listen to the full episode , subscribe to Newslaundry . Hosted on Acast. See acast...

This week on NL Hafta, it’s an all- Newslaundry panel of Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Anand Vardhan. The conversation starts with the unrest in Lakshadweep after a series of proposed laws were introduced by administrator Praful K Patel. On the draft Lakshadweep Development Authority Regulation, Anand says, “If the implications are the way that it changes the c...

This week on NL Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande and Mehraj D Lone are joined by Leena Gita Reghunath, an independent journalist based in Kerala. Leena starts the discussion talking about Pinarayi Vijayan's new ministry, especially the controversy over KK Shailaja's exclusion despite her laudatory work as the health minister. While noting that she was dropped in line with the...

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry ’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone and Anand Vardhan are joined by Dhanya Rajendran, co-founder and editor-in-chief of the News Minute . Dhanya begins with MK Stalin taking oath last week as chief minister of Tamil Nadu. She talks about how the ceremony took place even as the second wave of Covid has hit the country. Dhanya also talk...

This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Manisha Pande, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by journalist and writer Samrat X. Samrat begins by explaining the nuances of the recent post-poll violence in West Bengal. On the courts stepping in with respect to the poor handling of Covid in the country, Jayashree says, “It baffles me that it’s been four weeks and we still...