In this special NL Hafta Live episode, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan and Raman Kirpal were joined by The Hindu’s Sobhana K Nair and senior journalist Neerja Chowdhury to decode the Bihar poll results.

On the sweeping mandate for the NDA, Anand spoke about Nitish Kumar’s enduring appeal, noting that he “maximises his EBC base better than anyone else. He knows how to balance administrative acumen with realpolitik.”

Sobhana weighed in on Prashant Kishor’s poor performance, saying, “It is not a surprise to me that Jan Suraaj did not get even a single seat. There was a lot of disinterest in the rural regions of Bihar. A lot of distrust also. There were questions being asked about where he was getting so much money to put up such a big campaign.”

Neerja highlighted the unusual nature of the mandate. “I have not seen this kind of a pro-incumbency wave in India despite 20 years in power. It is unprecedented.”

On Nitish Kumar’s future in Bihar, she pointed to his biggest vulnerability: “The minus point of Nitish Kumar is that he doesn’t have a second line of leadership. Nor has he named a successor. At one point he considered Prashant Kishor but the story would have been different had they not fallen out.”

This and a lot more. Tune in!

Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introductions and announcements

00:01:25 - Headlines 

00:13:28 - Discussion on Bihar Election results 

01:34:17 - Neerja’s Recommendations

01:37:07 - Concluding remarks 

01:46:06- Recommendations

Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.

Produced by NL Team.

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

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by The Hindu journalist Sobhana K Nair and screenwriter, producer and professor Sabrina Dhawan.

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by journalist Sreenivasan Jain and Ritu Rao, writer, INTACH consultant, and researcher on water sustainability. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam and Anand Vardhan are joined by journalist Arati Jerath and Sunil Dahiya, founder of Envirocatalysts. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam and Shardool Katyayan are joined by Suhasini Haidar, Diplomatic Affairs Editor at The Hindu, and Dr Khinvraj Jangid, director and professor at the Centre for Israel Studies at OP Jindal Global University. 

Abhinandan asks Suhasini whether it was “embarrassing” for the Indian government to have permitted the press conference barring women journalists with Taliban’s Foreign Minister. He also asks what pressure took place for a second presser to take place with women journalists. 

“The Taliban doesn’t control the embassy in Delhi. The staff there still pledge allegiance to the previous, democratically elected government,” Suhasini says. “But when the foreign minister’s team invited journalists, only men were included. By the time everyone had gathered, it became clear that an all-male Taliban delegation was speaking to an all-male Indian journalist group. There were women journalists outside who weren’t allowed in, and it wasn’t just women who noticed – men also felt this was wrong, and some even sent apologies.”

The discussion moves to the Gaza peace agreement. Khinvraj says, “If you look at Trump, in this particular instance, he reversed his earlier, reckless proposal that Gaza be ‘wiped out’ and the idea that the people of Gaza didn’t deserve to live there. He achieved this deal through compromise, making what I see as a powerful course correction.” 

Jayashree is less optimistic. “Israel literally already occupies Gaza – it controls the movement of its citizens and what goes in and out. Yet it demands the surrender of arms as if a genocide hasn’t already been committed. We’re talking about hostages, but what about the thousands of Palestinians imprisoned and not called hostages simply because they’re not white?”

Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introductions and announcements

00:03:07 - Headlines 

00:09:05 - Afghan FM’s visit to India 

00:45:57 - Suhasini Haidar’s recommendation

00:49:07 - Gaza peace agreement 

01:28:39 - Khinvraj’s recommendation 

01:31:29 - Letters

01:37:39 - Recommendations

Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.

Produced by Amit Pandey with production assistant Priyali Dhingra and sound recordist Anil Kumar. 

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

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, and Anand Vardhan are joined by senior journalist Nirupama Subramaniam and lawyer and author Prashant Reddy. 

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This week, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri and Manisha Pande, and The News Minute’s Dhanya Rajendran and Sudipto Mondal áre joined by senior journalist Josy Joseph for a special Hafta and South Central crossover episode on the future of media.

Josy begins the discussion by arguing that the decline of newspapers and television is accelerating, not only due to technology, but also because of a compromised business model. He points out that while balance sheets are “artificially protected” through government and corporate advertising, the reality is stark

Dhanya shares hard lessons on what audiences pay for. While issues like climate change receive constant calls for coverage, they draw little financial support. “Everybody’s always asking why you guys are not reporting on the environment… but that is one fund people hardly pay,” she says. 

Manisha adds that the future role of journalism lies in helping audiences think critically in an “age of reels and feels.” 

“While others can trigger emotions, journalists can provide context, history, and perspective,” she says. 

On the replacement for legacy media, Josy says, “What you people are doing at The News Minute and Newslaundry, to me, is a great laboratory of experiment. You are actually bringing journalism back as the intellectual property for which people should pay,” he says. 

Timecodes

00:00:00 – Introductions and announcements

00:12:26 – Headlines 

00:37:42 -  Discussion on the future of media 

01:28:17 - Recommendations

Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.

Produced by Priyali Dhingra (Newslaundry), Bhuvan Malik (TNM), with production assistance by Ajay. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri and Manisha Pande are joined by Pooja Prasanna, editor-in-chief of reporting at The News Minute; senior lawyer Mishi Choudhary; independent journalist Smita Sharma; and senior journalist Sanjoy Hazarika from the Northeast.

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Manisha Pande and Shardool Katyayan are joined by Dhanya Rajendran, editor-in-chief of The News Minute, and Nitin Sethi, founding editor of the Reporter’s Collective. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Anand Vardhan, and Raman Kirpal are joined by Kanak Mani Dixit, founder-editor of Himal South Asian, and writer and podcaster Anurag Minus Verma. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by Akshay Bhambri, doctoral fellow at the Institute for Chinese Studies, Harvard Yenching Institute, and Sumeet Mhaskar, professor at OP Jindal Global University. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Anand Vardhan are joined by economist and author Vivek Kaul and sports journalist Sharda Ugra. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by Faizan Mustafa, legal scholar and VC of Chanakya National Law University, Patna, and Anuradha M Chenoy, former dean of JNU’s School of International Affairs.

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by Priya Sahgal, editorial director at NewsX, Jasmine Damkewala, advocate on record in the Supreme Court, and senior journalist Hridayesh Joshi.

The episode opens with a discussion on the opposition’s protest against the special intensive revision (SIR) exercise in Bihar. Priya states that when the opposition sets aside its differences, it can make an impact. “The fact that everybody came together, even the AAP, even though they're not part of the India Block itself, also showed there is unity. When the opposition comes in full strength, they can make an impact and a difference,” she says. 

Referring to Rahul Gandhi’s press conference on alleged voter fraud, Manisha notes how it is unusual for a political party to assume the role traditionally played by the media. “However journalistically sound it may be or not be, it’s still striking that political parties today also have to do the media’s job of starting a narrative through such investigations, because very few organisations have actually invested time in looking into this issue and the related complaints.”

The conversation then shifts to the Supreme Court’s order to remove stray dogs from Delhi’s streets. Jasmine Damkewala notes that the dog population surged during the pandemic, when government-led sterilisation drives came to a halt. “Especially during COVID, no sterilisations were happening, or very little… The thing is, the state government is not really doing sterilisations. They do very little, and for that, too, they send the dogs to NGOs and pay them for it.” 

Manisha adds that the court’s solution seems unworkable as there aren’t enough shelters to house the dogs. “This is Delhi – we haven’t even figured out shelters for humans during extreme heat waves or extreme cold waves,” she says.

Abhinandan agrees and says, “For the Supreme Court to pass an order that is unimplementable is ridiculous. We have to acknowledge there’s a problem, but this is certainly not the solution.”

For the discussion on the Uttarakhand disaster, Hridayesh joins from ground zero. He recounts his journey to the site of the tragedy, despite being denied permission by the local authorities. He also discussed the current situation at Dharali, the village most affected by the flood. 

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Timecodes

00:00:00 – Introductions and announcements

00:05:46 – Headlines 

00:16:47 - Opposition’s protest & INDIA bloc unity

00:44:31- Priya’s recommendations

00:47:53 - SC’s decision on stray dogs 

01:11:04 - Updates on Uttarkashi disaster

01:24:27- Letters

01:33:40- Recommendations

Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.

Produced and recorded by Amit Pandey and Naresh. 

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

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by Nitin Pai, co-founder and director of The Takshashila Institution, and senior journalist Hridayesh Joshi from Uttarkashi.

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Raman Kirpal are joined by Udit Misra from The Indian Express and independent journalist Sanjeev Srivastava.

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Anand Vardhan, Raman Kirpal, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by MK Venu, Founding Editor of The Wire, and award-winning investigative journalist and author Josy Joseph.

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by University of Michigan’s Associate Professor Joyojeet Pal and senior journalist Radhika Ramaseshan. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Jayashree Arunachalam, Anand Vardhan, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by election analyst and researcher Amitabh Tiwari, along with historian and Newslaundry subscriber Swati Chawla.

Check out the Newslaundry store and flaunt your love for independent media. 

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This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam and Raman Kirpal  are joined by writer and economist Vivek Kaul and environmental journalist Hridayesh Joshi. 

Check out the Newslaundry store and flaunt your love for independent media. 

Download the Newslaundry app. 

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