The Suno India Show

India was ranked at 142 out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ World press freedom index, in both 2020 and 2021. Since 2020, journalists have been arrested while covering the Hathras gangrape , farmers’ protests , caste violence in Uttarakhand , communal violence in Tripura , and now recently for reporting alleged electoral malpractice in UP elections. But the peak of press...

On January 31, 2022, around 22000 Anganwadi workers and helpers associated with Delhi State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union started their protest. They are seeking recognition as government employees, higher pay, better working conditions, and social security mechanisms like health insurance and pension.  While the Anganwadi workers were getting an honorarium of Rs 9678, the helpers were...

In the news reports from many Western countries, reporters and politicians have repeatedly compared Ukrainian refugees to those from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. They have used descriptors such as ‘civilised’ and ‘educated’ to differentiate white Ukrainians from refugees of colour. On the ground, this translates to discrimination against people of colour fleeing from Ukraine...

On March 10, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won in four out of five states in the recently concluded assembly elections across Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Punjab. The Samajwadi Party gained a crucial role as principal opposition party in Uttar Pradesh and Aam Aadmi Party won a thumping majority in Punjab. The Congress party lost sorely and was left faceless across all the States...

The Right To Food Campaign, the Centre for Equity Studies and other organisations conducted a survey of food insecurity across 14 Indian states, called the Hunger Watch survey. This is the second such survey since the onset of the pandemic. It was carried out in the months of December 2021 and January 2022.  In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Anjali Bha...

The Centre's Department of Commerce has proposed to replace the Tea Act 1953 with Tea (Promotion and Development) Bill 2022. The Department of Commerce is seeking public comments on the draft Bill till March 9th – the date was extended from 21st January. While the government says that the Bill seeks to modernise the Tea laws and remove parts that have become redundant, trade unions say that...

In India, marital rape is not yet a crime and like anywhere else a sensitive topic to deal with for policymakers, rights activists, lawmakers alike. But the data is staggering. If we were to talk of violence against women in absolute numbers, according to the Indian government’s latest National Family Health Survey, about 30% of Indian women aged 18-49 reported having experienced spousal vio...

In the second episode of the series on the hijab issue in Karnataka’s schools, we talk about how it adversely affects education. As per the recent surveys, there has been an uptick in the number of Muslim girls and women seeking education in schools and colleges across the country. But Muslim girls still have to face prejudice of being conservative, of not being interested in education, amon...

The hijab controversy has engulfed Karnataka, Many schoolgirls and teachers are not being allowed to enter classrooms with their hijabs on. The Karnataka High Court who is hearing the petitions filed by some Muslim students is asking the question- whether hijab is an essential garment for Muslims. We have a two-part series on this issue. This is the first episode. In this episode, Suno India&rsquo...

Union Budget 2022-23 comes at a time of rising inflation while we continue to grapple with the pandemic. Total government expenditure has increased by only Rs 1.75 lakh crore, from Rs 37.70 lakh crore in 2021-22 (Revised Estimate) to Rs 39.45 lakh crore in 2022-23. The budget has focused on capital expenditure rather than safety nets for the needy. Rs 7.5 lakh crores has been allocated to capital...

Ever since the pandemic started, a lot of employees are realising that their bosses don’t care enough about their health and safety. People are forced to come to work even when cases are peaking, until they catch the virus themselves or the government forces offices to close. But such experiences reveal something deeper about how employee rights in private companies have been eroded. In fact...

Only about 65% of the eligible Indian population above the age of 18 has completed both doses of the COVID-19 vaccination. With the third wave setting in, many governments announced different kinds of punitive measures for not having completed vaccines. In Kerala, the state will not provide free treatment for those not vaccinated fully. Some states such as Delhi and Maharashtra have made it compul...

On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to  Dr Dileep Mavalankar , the Director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, and Member Secretary of Gujarat State Task Force for COVID.  They discuss how omicron is different from earlier variants of the coronavirus, from symptoms, treatment to precaution. And how this varies depending on c...

Jacklin and Amali, two sisters who battled mental illnesses, are at the heart of an initiative to provide housing to women like them — those who suffer from mental ailments, grief, and homelessness. Their lived experiences breathe love and empathy into this initiative, which recently found a mention in a World Health Organisation report! The host of this episode, Hariprasad Radhakrishnan, tr...

As Mumbai police and now Delhi police catch alleged masterminds of the apps that virtually auctioned Muslim women, what took so long? Is it simply public pressure that led to the breakthroughs this time around? Or is the delay due to the difficulty of catching anonymous perpetrators online?  For an answer to these questions, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to  Karan Saini , a secu...

On this episode of Suno India, reporter Prashant Rathod profiles a rap band from Amravati. The band, Raptoli, includes Vipin Tatad, Tausif Khan, Mangesh Ingole and Gaurav Ingole. All four have grown up in Amravati's slums living the hard life as daily wage labourers.  The group sings about living in a slum, casteism, communalism, living in poverty, and even touches on national issues such as...

Indian films with hero cops often glorify police violence. At times, encounter killings are celebrated by the public at large. According to NHRC data, there are  five custodial deaths in India every day . The minister of state for home affairs, Nityanand Rai has said that there have been  151 custodial deaths in 2021 .  On this episode of the Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukh...

In November this year, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released the National Health Accounts estimates for 2017-18. These estimates reveal that the total government health expenditure has decreased from 3.8% in 2016-17 to 3.3% in 2017-18 and that the share of government health expenditure in the Gross Domestic Product or GDP of the country has increased to 1.35% in 2017-18 from 1.15% in...

Over 10% of undertrials in Indian jails were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The Supreme Court has said that the bail provision under UAPA is “comparatively less stringent” than that under the NDPS Act. Majority of people booked under this law are not traffickers.  In this episode of The Suno India Show, we will see how the NDPS Act affects not jus...

The Cabinet has approved a bill to repeal the three farm laws in the upcoming winter session. In this episode of The Suno India Show, we will get an expert view on why the laws are being repealed and what’s in store for the future of farmers.  Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Surinder S Jodhka, an author and a Sociology professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. They explore ho...

The school closures in India due to the COVID-19 Pandemic have been among the longest in the world. For close to 18 months, 265 million students have not been to school.  The report, “A FUTURE AT STAKE -Organizing the Education Recovery for the Most Vulnerable”  states that India is facing an education emergency like none other since independence. The report was released by T...

For about 18 months, children in India have not gone to school. The school closures have been among the longest in the world. This month, many state and local governments opened physical schools for children. Yet, private schools have not fully reopened as parents are reluctant to send their children to school and want to continue online education. We at Suno India want to address the various ques...

November 19, 2021, on Guru Nanak Jayanti, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the three controversial farm laws will be repealed in the upcoming winter session of the Parliament. In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Jasbir Kaur Nat, a state committee member of Punjab Kissan Union. Jasbir was on a bus to Chandigarh to organise more women protest...

In December 2020, three academic publishing giants—Elsevier, American Chemical Society and Wiley—moved the Delhi High Court against Sci-Hub and LibGen. These pirate websites make academic papers free for all. Academic publishers do not pay authors and make more profits than tech giants. Developing countries like India cannot afford the bulk of this research and the prices keep rising....

The Indian food industry is the third-largest in the world. But the country’s awareness related to food safety is severely lacking. When you enter a store and pick up a food item, do you wonder if the claims made on the label are true? To find out who regulates India’s food safety and how effective the regulatory mechanisms are, Suno India's Co-founder  Tarun Nirwan  spoke to...