Reporters Without Orders

This week, host Gurmehar Kaur is joined by Newslaundry ’s Sumedha Mittal and Washington Post’s Karishma Mehrotra. Sumedha reported that the national public radio broadcaster Akashvani – with arguably an unrivalled reach – has turned into the Modi government’s megaphone. She gave a peak into this “transformation”, delving into the radio’s news coverage packed with bulletins on the Modi government,...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by the Quint ’s Saptarshi Basak and freelance journalist Vikrant Dubey. Saptarshi explained the ethnic divide in Manipur between the state’s tribal groups. He delved into the ongoing conflict and its implications in the northeast, and also threw light on the central and the state governments’ failure in maintaining law and order. Vikrant spoke about his repor...

This week, host Gurmehar Kaur is joined by Newslaundry ’s Tanishka Sodhi and Avdhesh Kumar. Tanishka reported on all that has changed at NDTV, and all that has remained the same, six months into Gautam Adani’s takeover of the TV network. She divulged how the news outlet has transformed from being a critic of the Modi government to becoming a typical legacy media. She said the transition of its cov...

This week, host Tanishka Sodhi is joined by Newslaundry ’s Basant Kumar and Shivnarayan Rajpurohit.  Basant reported that state broadcaster Doordarshan uploaded videos on the YouTube channels of DD National and DD News UP, passing off BJP members as “common Muslim citizens” batting for the Uniform Civil Code. He explained how the broadcaster had laid aside journalistic ethics to exhibit its s...

This week, host Gurmehar Kaur is joined by Newslaundry ’s Shivnarayan Rajpurohit and Pratyush Deep. Shivnarayan reported on Congress leader Sachin Pilot ’s relationship with his party in Rajasthan, and the impediments on his way ahead of Rajasthan’s assembly polls. He explains how he traced the 45-year-old’s journey from being the youngest MP in the Indian parliament to his current tussle with chi...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry ’s Avdhesh Kumar and Sumedha Mittal. Avdhesh reported on the layoffs at ABP News this week, with nearly 47 employees losing their jobs. He explains how the company was “unprofessional” and things turned upside down after Sant Prasad Rai became senior vice president (news and production). Sumedha reported on Vinod Tomar , the suspended assistant...

This week, host Gurmehar Kaur is joined by Newslaundry ’s Anmol Pritam and Pratyush Deep. They delve into the details of two cases of “love jihad”, a Hindutva conspiracy theory, that gained traction in the media. The first was the abduction of a minor girl from Uttarkashi district in Uttarakhand, and the second was in connection with the murder of BJP leader Jonali Nath in Assam. Pratyush and Anmo...

This week, host Tanishka Sodhi is joined by Newslaundry ’s Shwet Pandey and independent journalist Saurav Das.  Saurav this week reported on how the government “blocks” requests for information and how a case filed by satirist Tanul Thakur might change this. “If the judgement is in favour of Tanul Thakur, then it could change censorship practices in India,” he says. Shwet, who wrote on the th...

This week, host Tanishka Sodhi is joined by Newslaundry ’s Basant Kumar, who went to Odisha to cover the horrific three-train accident of June 2. The official death toll is 288, but Basant says his experience on the ground suggests the toll might be much higher. “The Odisha government is handling the aftermath of this crisis rather well,” he says. “I remember the Balasore district magistrate was p...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry ’s Tanishka Sodhi and Shivnarayan Rajpurohit.  Tanishka’s story of the week investigated the online trolling of Chief Justice of India DY Chandrachud from January to April this year. It involved morphed photos and accusations of being “anti-Hindu”. Tanishka explains the significant role played by digital influencers in driving this social...

This week, host Tanishka Sodhi is joined by Newslaundry’s Prateek Goyal and Sumedha Mittal.  The discussion begins with Prateek’s story on Sonu Mansuri, a 21-year-old law intern in Madhya Pradesh, who was accused of being a “PFI agent”  and spent 50 days in jail on cheating charges.  Prateek recounts his interview with Sonu, in which she described her ordeal and opened up about the...

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Newslaundry ’s Avdhesh Kumar.  The discussion begins with Avdhesh’s report on the wrestlers’ protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar, and the late-night scuffle that broke out between the protesters and the Delhi police officials.  In the conversation, Avdhesh reflects on his first-hand experience of covering the protest, also shedding light on the al...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by The Quint ’s reporter Himanshi Dahiya, founder of Main Media Tanzil Asif and senior journalist from ETV Bihar Umesh Pandey.   In view of the World Press Freedom Day, the panel discusses the state of media in India, and the challenges staring it. The conversation is stirred by an acknowledgement of the recent decline in India’s press freedom ranking an...

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Newslaundry’s Tanishka Sodhi.  Tanishka’s story of the week was a deep-dive report on the journey of media mogul and Zee group founder Subhash Chandra Goenka. In the conversation, Tanishka revisits her excursion of gathering credible, exhaustive information on Mr Chandra and how he refused to speak to her directly as it wasn’t a “completely positive...

This week, host Tanishka Sodhi is joined by Newslaundry ’s Sumedha Mittal and Basant Kumar. Sumedha had interviewed journalists who witnessed the shooting of Atiq Ahmed and his brother in Prayagraj. They told her they still had to report on the story despite the horrors of what they went through. “I would have frozen and taken a backseat if a shootout took place in front of my eyes,” Sumedha says....

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Newslaundry ’s Sumedha Mittal.  Sumedha’s recent story underlines the government’s hack of employing the CBSE to further Modi campaigns and widen the BJP’s voter base.  She delves into how seeing a G20 logo on the admit cards of Class 10 and 12 CBSE students spiralled into a story idea. As she circled back to the years of 2013-14, she found tha...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry ’s Prateek Goyal and freelance journalist Snigdhendu Bhattacharya.  Snigdhendu had reported on the Ram Navami violence in Howrah and how the Hindutva outfits that had organised rallies “went against the set guidelines” issued by the police. He says large-scale celebrations of this sort intensified in the state only in the last five or six...

This week, it’s an all- Newslaundry panel as host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Gurmehar Kaur and Sumedha Mittal.  Gurmehar was in Punjab, reporting on the police’s manhunt for radical leader Amritpal Singh. She explains how Singh rose to prominence and the situation on the ground. Sumedha adds, “Punjab has seen so much since Partition that it has created a vacuum. And people like Deep Sidhu an...

This week, it’s an all- Newslaundry panel as host Basant Kumar is joined by Tanishka Sodhi and Anmol Pritam.  Tanishka this week reported on women in India being denied access to vaginal ultrasounds if they’re unmarried. She explains how doctors are hesitant to perform these vital procedures due to patriarchal notions about sexual activity among young, unmarried women. The panel then discusse...

This week, it’s an all- Newslaundry panel as host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Basant Kumar and Ashwine Kumar Singh.  The discussion begins with Basant’s report on an auditing firm associated with the Adani Group that was flagged in the Hindenburg research report. Basant explains the timeline of events and how mainstream media, particularly television, has not fully covered the story. Ashwine...

This week, it’s an all- Newslaundry panel as Basant Kumar is joined by Avdhesh Kumar and Anmol Pritam.   The discussion begins with Avdhesh’s report on a cobbler from Delhi’s Mayur Vihar who has been allegedly pressured by a lawyer to change his surname to a word decreed unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Avdhesh points to caste discrimination and how the “emotional as well as financ...

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Newslaundry’s Shivnarayan Rajpurohit and Ashwine Kumar Singh.  The discussion begins with Shiv’s story on how foreign correspondents in India have been reeling under pressure in recent years. They struggle with threats, visas and access while the government believes they have a “bias” against India. Akanksha points out how there has been a “concerte...

This week, host Tanishka Sodhi is joined by Sumedha Mittal of Newslaundry and Pallavi Pundir, South Asia correspondent for Vice .  Sumedha explains her report on how there’s been a sharp drop in budgetary allocations to the ministry of minority affairs and the impact this has on education. Educational schemes have been scrapped, she says, including the pre-matric scholarship for classes 1 to...

This week, host Tanishka Sodhi is joined by Newslaundry ’s Shivnarayan Rajpurohit and Freelance award-winning journalist Srishti Jaswal.  The discussion begins with Shiv’s report on the surveys at the BBC offices. They talk about the reasons behind the survey and what could possibly come out of it. Shiv also talks about the experience on ground and the media coverage on the subject. The discu...

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Newslaundry ’s Alenjith K Johny and Avdhesh Kumar. The discussion begins with Alenjith’s report on human-wildlife conflict in the village around Kottiyoor wildlife sanctuary. Alenjith elaborates that farmers migrated to the region from the southern part of Kerala; the conflicts began recently. Akanksha and Avdhesh recall while covering the UP assembly el...