This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri and Manisha Pande are joined by The News Minute’s Dhanya Rajendran and The Wire’s Seema Chishti.
The panel first discusses the recent crackdown on pro-Palestine student protests in US campuses and deportation of two Indian students, Ranjani Srinivasan and Badar Khan Suri. Dhanya says, “Ranjani insisted that she was not a huge part of the protest, but Indian newspapers had already labeled her a Hamas supporter”.
As the panel draws parallels between what is happening in the US and the clampdown on student protests in India, Manisha says: “I always thought that in American universities, despite their issues, there was a certain freedom to voice your opinions. For that to go away is quite something to see."
Abhinandan then moves to discussing if the concept of patriotism can be considered primitive. He says: “Patriotism is love for your country, but your country may be pursuing values based on whichever government is in power. And that value system may not align with yours.” As the panel debates what it means to be a patriot, Seema adds, “True patriotism should be about wanting better lives for fellow citizens, not blind devotion to the government."
The panelists then talk about how the English news media gets to set the narrative in India. On regional media’s limited influence compared to its English counterpart, Manisha says: "English newspapers still have an outsized influence because bureaucrats, judges, and policy-makers read them”. However, English news channels, she points out, “are losing relevance”. “Politicians now prefer giving interviews to local YouTubers and regional media because that’s where the numbers and voters are”.
This and a lot more. Tune in!
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Song: Tom Petty - Honey Bee
Timecodes
00:00:00 – Introductions and announcements
00:04:26 – Headlines
00:21:16 – US campus crackdown
00:34:40 – Defining patriotism
00:46:48 – English media’s dominance
01:08:55 – Letters
01:44:02 – Recommendations
References
NL Sena - The impunity of India’s police
TNM’s Ranjani Srinivasan interview
Hafta letter readout link for subscriber
Recommendations
Dhanya
India Inked: Elections in the World's Largest Democracy
Manisha
When Shivaji’s grandson visited Aurangzeb’s tomb
World Leaders Have Usually Made Their Mark in 11 Years. Modi is Running Out of Time
Inside the manosphere luring young Indian men and boys
Seema
Abhinandan
Radio Open Source - A New World
All history’s violent. Why pick only Aurangzebs?
Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters
Produced and recorded by Priyali Dhingra, Ashish Anand, and Anil Kumar.
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Manisha: [00:00:00] This is a Newslaundry Podcast and you're listening to NL Hafta. Angrez Apna Lagaan aur
Abhinandan: Newslaundry Apna Chhorte. Welcome to another episode of Hafta. We're recording this on the 21st of March, which is a Friday at 11. 15 in the morning. We have in the studio Our partner organizations, Editor in Chief Dhanya Rajendran. Welcome Dhanya.
Dhanya: Thank you. Thank you. I'll be here
Abhinandan: next
Dhanya: week also.
Abhinandan: Excellent.
Why
Manisha: are you going? You should have just stayed on.
Abhinandan: But not on Hafta. be in Delhi.
Manisha: I'll be in Delhi.
Abhinandan: Also, Manisha Pandey, our Managing Editor at News Laundry.
Manisha: All of us are wearing white.
Abhinandan: Yes, that's right. And, uh, Raman sir is not on hafta this week. Uh, we will be joined though in a few minutes by the editor at The Wire, Seema Chishti.
And let's see if she's wearing white. There'll [00:01:00] be a completely black and white hafta. Before we get into the headlines, I would like to again remind everybody with this QR code that you see here, and there is a link in the show notes for a new project. The impunity of India's police. It will be a joint News Minute News Laundry project, where we'll have at least eight, if not more.
Journalists, reporters, and producers who will be fanning around at least five states, if not more. Basant, Pratik, Maria, Anisha, Janvi, Harita, Kora, Nidarshana. Did I pronounce that correctly? Yes, you did. And Jisha. Uh, and producers who we are still figuring out. I don't know if Priyali is going to be traveling or Ashish, our two producers here.
And what they will be investigating is from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, police excesses take many forms. There was that horrific instance in Tamil Nadu where the guy's teeth were broken. Uh, [00:02:00] UP, we hear cases all the time. Delhi police back in my day, which was notorious now is actually one of the better ones.
Can you imagine the world we're in? In spite of the fact that there's that video of that, them hitting someone, making him chant Janganman, uh,
Manisha: during the Delhi riots, and
Abhinandan: yet there is no justice on that. So police is the most frequent and obvious interface that the Indian citizen has with the state. And it is broken.
It is devoid of any trust. And it is the first step towards completely having no trust in the system. And we will be doing a series of investigations not funded by advertising from either Sarkari ads, which you see a full everywhere or ads of large corporations and industrialists, many of whom are aligned with various governments.
So do scan this QR code, click on the link, support our journalism because the News Minute and News Laundry do not [00:03:00] look at ads. We do not look towards advertising to support our journalism. We look towards you because when the public pays, the public is served. So please support our journalism and pay to keep news free.
And also we have a project which has been going on for four months, just because right now Delhi environment air is breathable, it's not great. There is, it's nowhere in the headlines, but this is still extremely toxic air. It's just by North India, Delhi standards. It is, oh, it's not so bad. We're going to be running this campaign through the year.
You can participate by filing RTIs, by supporting our journalism, Bye. telling us what the AQI in your area is because it's no longer just a North India problem. It's not just UP, Haryana, Rajasthan, uh, Delhi and Punjab. It has reached Bombay. The AQI in Bombay last month was worse than Delhi. So do contribute, go to the News Laundry website, uh, and click on that.
Are you guys also [00:04:00] doing this because Bangalore doesn't have an air pollution problem, but you will soon unless you participate.
Dhanya: No, I think slowly the air is becoming bad, but yeah, we should start focusing. And one thing I want to say is that, you know, whenever we talk about environment projects or we talk about environment journalism, everybody's very encouraging and they will say that please cover more, please cover more.
But I've also realized that is the one that. people pay less.
Abhinandan: Yeah, it takes the longest. We've also noticed that. Yeah. So yeah, do support our journalism and, uh, pay to keep news free. Let's get the headlines from Manisha before we start the discussions.
Manisha: Yes. Communal clashes broke out in Nagpur this week.
Uh, what happened was that VHP and BJP, VHP and Bajrang Dal were holding a protest demanding the removal of Aurangzeb's tomb. Soon rumors broke that, uh, they have desecrated Quran. They've burned a had Quranic verses written on it. After this police complaints were filed, but all hell broke [00:05:00] loose. Mobs were out in this case.
At least the police was under heavy. Uh, we were at the receiving end of a mob violence, about 30 or so police people were injured, including women officers. Stones were thrown at the police. Uh, meanwhile, after all of this, there was curfew in Nagpur. said that. Aurangzeb was not relevant after discussing him for one month straight.
Suddenly, Aurangzeb is not relevant. And the CM said that people have gotten emotional after watching Chhawa. So it's no responsibility of the politicians. Blame the movie.
Abhinandan: Now, also, I watched even after the RSS, you know, senior leader said this, at least two channels, one of them being the gold standard. TV news did
Manisha: not stop.
The
Abhinandan: gold standard being India Today. From morning to evening Aurangzeb. Dude, you guys have nothing else to cover. It's
Manisha: pathetic. It's actually getting so The whole month actually they've discussed Aurangzeb. I don't know what these reporters
Abhinandan: do when they go. What do the editors tell them? What do you have to report on this week?
It's just disgraceful. 69 [00:06:00]
Manisha: people have been arrested so far. The Punjab police detained several farm leaders including Jagjit Singh Dalewal in Mohali and dismantled structures at two protest sites along the Haryana border. The farmer leaders were detained when they were returning from a meeting with the union government.
Fresh clashes in Manipur's Churachanpur district led to the death of one person and several being injured. A shutdown was imposed in the district on Wednesday. Every week we're hearing of some of the other casualty from Manipur. It just is not stopping. Yeah,
Abhinandan: it
Manisha: isn't. In news from the courts, the Supreme Court recorded an undertaking from the Election Commission that it was willing to upload booth wise voter turnout data on its website after every phase to address allegations of widespread discrepancies.
This is good. Transparency always helps.
Abhinandan: I don't know why the Election Commission has to Give an undertaking. Do these things as if a tooth is being extracted from an, you know, adolescent. Put out your stuff here.
Manisha: Stating that it was a matter of freedom of [00:07:00] media. The Supreme Court questioned the rationale behind the Delhi court's order directing Wikipedia to take down a page about the ongoing proceedings of a defamation suit filed by ANI against the platform.
Thank God, this had set a really wrong
Abhinandan: precedent. Elon
Manisha: Musk, owned X, filed a lawsuit against the union government for allegedly using the IT Act to block content on the website. The case has been filed in the Karnataka High Court.
Abhinandan: In fact, I mean, this is also connected because This whole Grok
Dhanya: thing, which is, it's just so ridiculous.
The Hindu has an article that the government has taken note of all the replies that Grok is giving, which is not flattering the government, the BJP or the RSS. But I saw an interesting take by Nikhil Pawar, who's editor of Media Nama. He's saying it's. Basically, AI, which is garbage in and garbage out. So Grok looks at Twitter or X for its, uh, you know, inputting.
So what it gives out can also be problematic. It's not like it's rooted in history. People should stop
Manisha: getting excited about the fact that, oh, they're taking down the person that I don't like. Seriously. A [00:08:00] massive pile of cash was recovered from Justice Yashwant Verma's house after a fire broke out and the family called emergency services.
TOI reported that it was about 50 crore rupees. Stunning.
Dhanya: No, um, I mean, I think we really don't talk enough about judges. Because everybody's just out of contempt.
Manisha: Standalizing the court. Yeah.
Dhanya: And I was just 50 crore, can you imagine? No, I was just thinking there was a case in Andhra Pradesh in 2012 to 17, where the one judge came and said that 100 crores was offered to give bail to Gali Janardhan Reddy.
And another judge, if I remember his name, Pattabhiram Rao was suspended. I don't remember actually now whether money was actually found on him, how much was the money, but 100 crore was the sum which was, uh, which was said by another judge. So imagine.
Manisha: After this incident, CJI Sanjeev Khanna convened a meeting of the Collegium where it was unanimously decided to transfer Justice Verma back to Allahabad High Court because there he can can carry on with his 50 crore cash in the house in Allahabad, not in Delhi.
Abhinandan: And before we move on to the next headline, [00:09:00] our guest has magically appeared. Welcome Seema.
Seema: Thank you so much. You are
Abhinandan: your senior editor at The Wire.
Seema: Yeah, I'm editor of The Wire.
Abhinandan: I see. So thank you for joining us. We will just get into the discussion. Manisha is finishing the headlines. On
Manisha: Tuesday, ED raided eight locations in Bengaluru, said to be linked to Open Society Foundation run by George Soros.
This is part of his investigation into alleged violations of Foreign Exchange Management Act. ED has also summoned Rashtriya Janata Dal leader and former Bihar Chief Minister Lallu Prasad Yadav, his wife and son Tej Pratap Yadav for questioning in connection with a money laundering case linked to the alleged land for job scams.
Abhinandan: But I will say, um, that Trump picking a former George Soros employee, not just employee, one of George Soros main economic hitmen as a chairman of the Fed, um, is, will put all the Bhakts into a [00:10:00] kerfuffle now if Trump has picked him, then I think
Seema: that's very clear that this is something that will carry favor and.
Abhinandan: It's a classic trope. So that is allowed.
Seema: Yeah. But I think they've moved away from George Soros now. It's USAID. They're busy chasing the US state, but Soros will never move off target.
Manisha: PM Narendra Modi appeared on a three hour long podcast with Lex Fridman. I had no idea about this, who this guy is. Till he interviewed RDA Prime Minister Mohi underlined his similarities with US.
President Donald Trump stress the significance of dialogue over discord with India China ties. China was very happy to hear this lash out at Pakistan and called for peace in Ukraine. He also spoke about journalists. I don't know if you guys miss that. Journalists, Skea, Mada, mc.
This is, did you [00:11:00] understand last part? I didn't. This is, uh, should you be a honeybee or should you be a house fly?
Modi: the um uh um uh um um you But if someone does something wrong, the bees will sting so
Manisha: badly that you won't be able to
Abhinandan: show your face to anyone for
Manisha: three days. sabse da gun jo majate [00:12:00] hain, Yeah,
Abhinandan: exactly. They're the ones who get the most. But, yeah. So, uh, Scott Besant, rich, gay, and likes friend sharing.
Besant spent part of his career managing money for billionaire George Soros. His nominational highest ranking officer, he's the new, he's the treasury secretary that Trump has picked.
Seema: Trump has no problems with people who help George Soros make his money. The problem is with how he's spending it. So I think they very clearly distinguish between the two like
Manisha: avatars.
In news from the parliament, both houses witnessed disruptions yet again after members of the DMK protested wearing t shirts with slogans against delimitation. Narendra Modi also spoke in parliament in support of Mahakum. and likened it to India's historical milestones like the 1857 uprising and the Dandi March.
The opposition questioned his silence on the stampede. Meanwhile, the Home Ministry has told the Lok Sabha that the centre did not conduct an inquiry of its own into stampede and does not have any data on the number of dead and injured. That's ridiculous, man. How can they give this
Abhinandan: answer with a straight [00:13:00] face?
Manisha: Also, how can you compare this to 1857? Also, how did they get with so much precision the 66 crore
Seema: number if they couldn't get the number of dead in the stampede? So, you know, one of the two things is completely out of whack.
Manisha: Meanwhile, Karnataka Minister K N Rajanna claimed that 48 MLAs in the state have been honey trapped and conceded that there was an attempt to trap him as well.
He sought an investigation from the state police into the matter. He said that as per my knowledge, about 48 people have fallen victim to these CDs and pen drives. Not just one or two. Please elaborate. Have they fallen victims to pen drives?
Dhanya: I can just say that at any given point of time, any Kannada channel or newspaper will have CDs with them.
Because there are always sex CDs of Karnataka politicians, uh, and someone or the other will keep going to court. There are so many injunctions in court. If you take a list of injunctions from Karnataka courts, it is always politicians taking for CDs. And almost every month two politicians will go to court.
Not an exaggeration at all. We have actually recorded this as a story. [00:14:00] So
Manisha: all
Dhanya: ministers have a CD
Manisha: of
Dhanya: theirs. Mostly, not all. Let's not put all, but I think around 50 to 60 percent surely. Yeah, you're saying 48. This guy is saying 48 MLAs. He's a minister. And he has also named other ministers saying that this man, there's a CD on him, there's a
Abhinandan: CD on him.
But when's the last time in India, a quote unquote sex scandal impacted a politician's political prospects?
Dhanya: No, I think the problem here is that, now these sex tapes may be consensual. We don't know, right? Now, the confusion happened in Karnataka when Prajwal Rewanna's tapes came out. They had already seen so many videos that they thought this is also consensual.
Because so many CDs are there, it's not even a joke. And if it is consensual, I think, okay, fine. But there are so many cases in the state where it has not been consensual sex, where there have been cases of rape. So when this guy says 48 and everybody's honey trapped. We should not just like, listen to him and believe that there could be cases of rape and harassment in that.
Manisha: Yeah. Cause in [00:15:00] Rivanna case, clearly there were videos that were not concerned.
Dhanya: Before also, there have been other ministers who have been caught. But it has
Abhinandan: never impacted anyone's political prospects in our country. But Rivanna?
Dhanya: No, there have been others who have resigned, but come back. I think when it
Seema: becomes criminal, just the fact of there being a sex kind of a sleazy thing may not impact, but the minute it takes a criminal turn, there are known to be consequences.
Abhinandan: I'm not sure if this is significant enough. Sebi
Manisha: Bhard, former CNBC Awaaz News anchor, he manghai from participating in the securities market for five years for engaging in fraudulent trading practices.
Abhinandan: Is he still an anchor? He was an anchor. He
Manisha: was. He was an anchor. He was an anchor.
Abhinandan: I see. So, but this is, I mean, this is an issue that has been on for so long.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember this has been raised in the late 2000s. It was an open secret in many newsrooms when business channels were making like in the boom years of television news. They were doing it all the time and what they call front running, right?
Manisha: We have a very good piece on it by Vivek Kaul, in case you guys are interested.[00:16:00]
Um, U. S. crackdown on students. An Indian researcher at Georgetown University, Badar Khan Suri, was detained by Trump administration for his alleged links to Hamas. However, his deportation order was then barred by district court in Virginia. He's an ex Jamia student. Meanwhile, another student at Columbia University, Ranjani Srinivasan, self deported last week, days after her, their student visa was revoked for allegedly participating in pro Palestine protests.
You've interviewed her. Yeah, we have interviewed her. And
Abhinandan: she's a Canadian passport holder.
Dhanya: Yeah. She's now in Canada. Um, and in her case, what she told us is that she's not a leader of the protest. She was participating in a few, but she was not even there when the main protests happened. So other students we spoke to in the university also said that it's surprising why they've chosen her.
To make an example of perhaps, uh, and, and not the other. So maybe it's to tell everyone that even if you are a small participant in it, you can be picked out.
Abhinandan: Hmm.
Dhanya: But she's getting a lot of hate from [00:17:00] the right wing here also. That's the sad part. Not like
Manisha: when they come back, they'll find support here.
Exactly.
Abhinandan: Yes. Good. Discuss this briefly. Also in this
Manisha: two weeks before his reciprocal tariffs on India deadline, Donald Trump said that he believes India will likely reduce tariffs that it imposes on American goods. So he said that I'm going to probably go with the tariffs, but it seems like they've lowered.
Abhinandan: I mean, one has But then
Manisha: we said that, no, we have not done anything
Abhinandan: yet. Yet, not yet. But I think we must admit that for whatever the reasons that, at least from what Western media I'm consuming, Trump has a personal, genuine attraction towards quote unquote strong men. So he deals with them differently than he deals with People who doesn't think are strong men the way he approaches India, even if he's gonna impose tariffs, you know, the disrespect to this, he talks about Canada or even close allies, whereas he's also saying that he'll increase tariffs.
But he says it in a way that, you know, it's very unfair. We will charge them what they charge us. Although I love India, we have a [00:18:00] great relationship. Yeah, he's a, he does negotiate deal with India. He doesn't talk about India the way he talks about others. Now, I don't know whether that's a foreign policy win or what.
Seema: I don't think it is because I think what really would worry Mr. Modi is that he wants to divide up the world between she, Putin and himself. India doesn't quite figure there. So India can go on speaking what it does and, and you're right that they've also, the reporting has been a little kind of sandpapered here.
Trump has been very rude, forthright and said, I'm not doing anything. Second of April. And even when other countries are sticking it to, uh, Trump and saying what they may suffer more than America does, but they're saying that peace, India hasn't set a dam after the shackling. They've been so remarkably timid or even about tariffs.
And, you know, instead you have, uh, saying that the protectionist mindset, what about making India? What about make America, you know, India great again? I
Abhinandan: mean, I don't understand what you're going to say. Just
Seema: rubbish. And he's a lead negotiator. So he's going to decide whether Walmart is going to kick out all the mom and pop stores.
And what's this with the, with the Starlink deal as well. So it's all very shady. And [00:19:00] earlier, remember journalists could be arrested for having a satellite phone. So India is very touchy about its sat phone, uh, you know, sat waves. And
Abhinandan: I think it is a genuine concern, but this whole alignment with us companies today, it's reported that.
Uh, Tata will probably be getting into some sort of an arrangement with Tesla. I don't know what the details will be, but that may be happening. And there's
Seema: some news also that all households can have only two cars, which are petrol or diesel, you know, fossil fuels. The third will have to be an EV. So are we creating the ground for, you know, and even in this, I don't know if you'll probably discuss that, the Grok matter, which has enraged them.
They're saying they're going to go after questioners because they daren't say anything because this is Musk's AI. They went after Google. Gone to court against
Manisha: them, so. Days after Israel resumed its airstrikes and killed about 500 people in Gaza, Hamas fired retaliatory rockets at Tel Aviv. Israel on Tuesday resumed its attack on Gaza.
As per a BBC report, about 170 children in Gaza have died.
Abhinandan: Yeah, it's, it's one of the worst strikes actually. And I, I think it's one hell of a coincidence that, [00:20:00] uh, Netanyahu resumed this. Full out bombing. Yeah, exactly. A day after that judge, you saw how he spoke to Netanyahu, right? Yeah, he, he says, lower your voice here.
I mean, it's, yeah, it was, I don't know. He's not used to being spoken to like that. And I guess he figured that dude, if it goes out there and I get even weaker the day after that, he resumed his bombing. I think it's, it's very transparent for him. Keeping this war going is a question of political survival.
Manisha: Imagine
Abhinandan: that's the headline. Anything else? Okay. So I want to once again, remind everybody. Please scan this QR code, pay to keep news free, buy a joint Newslaundry News minute subscription. You can also contribute to the wire You can go to the website and I'm sure there's a live link there and Support our journalism before Dhania goes back.
Otherwise, she'll say there's no point appearing on your hafta podcast. You're wasting my time Also,
Dhanya: we are having a We're going to co publish a few interesting stories and investigations. All right. By the time this hafta
Abhinandan: goes out, there [00:21:00] may be a big story out there. Uh, not this hafta, by next hafta. By next hafta, okay.
By next hafta, it'll be out there. Bombshell of a story. Bombshell of a story. Watch out for that one. So before we discuss, I want to discuss, you know, Language media, its impact versus English media, its impact. Uh, and I want to discuss, you know, what happened in Nagpur. No, we
Manisha: want to discuss the university.
Yeah, the university. Devotation of.
Abhinandan: So, okay, then let's, let's actually start with that and then we'll come to the language media. Because what I want to start off with is kind of related to that. You know, I don't remember, Manisha, several years ago we'd had a discussion here on Hafta. And I think it was triggered by something I had said at some panel that patriotism is a slightly primitive concept.
Uh, nationalism
Manisha: or patriotism?
Abhinandan: Patriotism. Uh, because it is about values. Patriotism is love for your country. Whereas your country may be pursuing values based on whichever is the government in power at the time. And that [00:22:00] value system may not, you know, align with your value system. So you will talk against that value system.
And strictly speaking, that is unpatriotic. But it is just how, you know, we are. And I think Anand made some fantastic points that as long as the concept of boundaries exists, the national state is the way the world is structured and there is no alternative to it right now. And he was right. It is, whether it's visas, whether it's, no matter how liberal these even Scandinavian countries get, they to give you the visa for six days.
So you have to attend this. 21st your event gets over, 21st night take a flight back. They don't even want you to stay one extra day. The nation state as a concept is the defining framework of the world right now. So patriotism. But now with this, the many right wing in India celebrating an Indian student being kicked out of America is unpatriotic because you're backing a foreign power treating your citizen badly, but your [00:23:00] value aligns with Trump's value.
I think the world has come around. It's, no, it's basically what we discussed five, six years ago. And as usual, the writing always comes to, you know, the realization things a few years later, if not decades later, that is the overwhelming system with which people will choose their side. Patriotism is out.
Trump can treat. Left wing or liberal Indians like shit and this government and the right wing ecosystem will celebrate it But that's not patriotic so in that context about you know, these foreign students being asked to go and when I had gone for a conference to UK a few years ago many students and academics had come up to me and we couldn't pursue that story because none of them was willing to give evidence said that we get direct threats when we participate in protests from the high commission.
There are people there with video and they say, you know, this is where we're from and [00:24:00] we're watching you and are you an OCI card holder or not? So they were scared too. And Trump is doing exactly that four years later. So I think Trump is actually following the footsteps of, of Modi. And what happened in these two specific cases, I think you've interviewed one, uh, so Manisha and Jhanna can just tell us about that.
And in that context, where does that leave free speech the world over?
Dhanya: So Ranjini Srinivasan is actually, she's based out of Canada, but she was studying in Columbia. What they did reach out to us for the interview. Columbia
Abhinandan: University, people shouldn't confuse that. She wasn't in the country Columbia, she was Columbia
Dhanya: University, New York.
Yeah. So, um, and also imagine for an Indian like Ranjini to speak to Indian media, she has to be very wary of who she speaks to because she doesn't know how it is going to be portrayed and how it is going to be put out. Uh, by then, uh, I think the times of India said Hamas supporter. thrown out and because that's what the American said, right?
She's a Hamas supporter without any proof. It's just a [00:25:00] statement with two lines. That's all. By then the Indian newspapers have already branded her Hamas supporter. So, uh, she spoke to the Hindu and then, uh, she spoke to us. quite a tricky situation where you don't know if you're going to get support from the Indian government.
So they are trying to look if the Tamil Nadu government will give any support, as in at least speak on their behalf, because she's from Chennai, right? And I doubt that too, uh, in the sense that. Any Tamil Nadu politician who wants to go to the US and has to get a visa may also be a bit skeptical about supporting her.
Right. But I think that's what they're trying. They, they don't think the Indian government is going to support them. And I feel that this is not the last, this will not be the final one. There will be other Indian students who will be marked. And I, I have a, um, I have a friend who was a student in Germany.
He was saying that they have been strictly told now not to even like retweet stuff, which is pro Palestine, because even from there they could be deported. So everywhere this fear is there within the [00:26:00] student community that something is going to happen. And even in Columbia, like I know a lot of Indian students there for so many months, they've been anticipating this action and they've been sort of.
You know, getting legal help. Imagine as students have gone to study for one or two years, you are participating in protests because you have to and you feel that then you have to lend your voice. I mean, the first reaction, of course, of people who are fence sitters are, why do students protest? I saw this really bizarre story on News 18 saying, who is Ranjani Srinivasan?
Why do we know so little about her? Why should you know about every student in every university, man? And then it's right about. Why is she a PhD scholar? I think she's in her 30s because they have never heard of the concept of people studying and taking jobs and going back to study and all, you know, that is a concept alien to them.
And okay, why are students doing politics? Why can't they just sit quietly? Why do they talk about this? The quality
Abhinandan: of columnists at Network 18 and First Post. Is, oh dear God, it is just so, so, it's like adolescent angst and [00:27:00] essays.
Seema: I think it's kind of deliberately done to kind of promote and push this narrative, create this alternative, please be a worker and be a cog in some reliance factory or place as ever.
I mean, who runs the place? You know, there's this whole vast network of media is not a coincidence. And now that they've also bought Disney, et cetera, please get ready for OTTs, which spread the same kind of a message. I mean, the
Abhinandan: Washington Post had done that story. So, you know,
Seema: you'll soon see a lot of that.
And in all their stories, there is this sting that runs through that, which has all these questions latent. Why are you like, you
Dhanya: know, because Ranjani insisted that, you know, she was not a huge part of the protest. She's not saying she didn't protest, but she was not a leader. Uh, after the interviews with, I think she first spoke to New York Times and then the other two interviews came.
There's this website called a pamphlet. I don't know what it is. It's a right wing fact check website, they call it. They have said no, she was participating in protests and they've put the, uh, put a video of another Indian student or maybe some Asian student doing sloganeering against Israel and all that.
Not that anything is wrong with that, but it's [00:28:00] not even Ranjani. And they're like, we are fact checking, look at how Ranjani is shouting slogans, and that's become viral now. Everybody's putting that video saying that, see, she was fomenting trouble in US. So, it's the Indian media, both mainstream, a section of it, and this YouTube fellows who are actually creating more trouble for her, I feel.
Manisha: In fact, every time I'm asked about the shift in Indian media, to me, the defining period is the 2016 JNU sedition case. That was when the media really kind of, you know, there was propaganda, pro Modi stuff, but it completely turned against people. The kind of things, the call to arrest Umar Khalid was made on television news.
The call to kind of crack down on what's happening in our universities. Why aren't they studying? Why aren't they, you know, they're misusing our taxpayers money. Why are these 30 year olds in universities? So that kind of thing we've seen from 2016 and only escalate to the point that Uh, who was that, um, young girl in Bangalore who was also arrested under sedition charges?
Disha Ravi. Disha Ravi. So we have, and India [00:29:00] has had the most repressive policy towards protest on Palestinians.
Abhinandan: We have
Manisha: not allowed any protest in campuses. Even
Dhanya: in Congress. In Bangalore, I think just now, uh, two days ago, a case has been filed by a group of lawyers because everywhere they went to protest for Palestine, they were detained.
They were not allowed even in Freedom Park. Now in Bangalore, it's very strange. You can only protest in Freedom Park. Ironically, it's called Freedom Park. You cannot protest anywhere else in the city.
Abhinandan: Even in Delhi, it says Jantar Mantar used to be, now even that is
Dhanya: Haan, so Uh, I mean, it's a new thing in Bangalore.
So they have now filed a case saying that why can't we protest for Palestine? So they're not having it.
Manisha: In a week where 170 children have died and In India, I had come to accept this, that now, especially if a Jamia is involved in a protest, or if an AMU, you know, students group decides to protest for Palestine, immediately you'll have news channels pick it up and say, look, Hamas supporters, they are supporting terrorists.
But I didn't think that this would happen in American universities, because that's the [00:30:00] standard you would look at, that you could, whatever the problems may be in the U. S. In these campuses and this was a very fraught kind of emotional issue there way more than in India because even the left wing activists there were quite aggressive with what they were doing and sometimes obnoxious in how they were behaving.
But there was this freedom to kind of say your piece for that to go away in the American universities has been quite something to see.
Abhinandan: And the chilling effect is real with people who want visas to go somewhere because now US has said now we'll check your social media. If you're critical of Trump, people who are critical of Trump now can be actually, you know, removed from the job.
The French
Seema: scholar was not allowed to go in because they took his phone and they checked his social media, or not even social media, some message to someone on probably private social media, WhatsApp or something. And it was saying something like, what is Trump up to and all, they sent him back. So you're conflating what you said about patriotism, I mean, plenty to unpack there and [00:31:00] important points that when you confuse government with country.
So there's government country values and you completely directly make it an okay, you know, if you don't say long live the king, you're dead.
Abhinandan: So the reason for the nation state to exist is more economic, but when it comes to what you support or whether you, uh, have. Uh, you know, whether you endorse what your country does, I think the whole patriotism in that sense, but I just want to accept that even the hardcore right wing voices that today have become ugly and they have shared, you know, the hafta table with us in the past.
I will say they've been consistent on one thing and salvage with them. And I think the liberals have also been consistent on that, no matter how much they say that, you know, the liberals used to kiss up to the Congress, how the liberals oppose salvageism. But even the Bhakt Jan, [00:32:00] at that time I remember, they supported the salvageism, although it was a Congress project.
So, on this whole, You know, crack down on people speaking up and the right wing have been consistent, at least in India.
Dhanya: Yeah. No, I just want to add. Don't
Abhinandan: you think? This one used to support Selvajit, this Open India buffoon who used to be with us on, uh, on the cleaners show. And today he's a Modi Bhakt. You know, there's so many buffoons.
Dhanya: I don't know which one, but I didn't want to say about the media thing. I was reading the story in the Hindustan times from 2018. It's like a feature story on this couple. The man is from Delhi. The woman is from Gaza and how they had a baby and they were choosing between Gandhi and Arafat and they named the baby Arafat.
This is the same Badar Khan. Who's now, uh, I mean, the U. S. court has now stopped his deportation, but the U. S. wants to deport him for supporting Palestine. At that time, the English media during their wedding and all that had romanticized it because there's a woman from Gaza, a man from India. Now, this is how things change.
Now, how, how would we, how would we [00:33:00] be reporting it? Actually, what you mentioned, you know,
Seema: just jumping, but within subject, within the syllabus, what you said about, uh, 2016, JNU being a signature thing, we must not forget the role of the media in even possibly inserting the slogan. ZNU. ZNU. Very much. Push the slogan.
So we don't even know if it was that kind of a slogan. There was this whole anti India slogan allegedly by that crowd, which triggered everything. What is sedition resting on? It's resting on possibly doctor tapes put out by media. So that's where it's not about kowtowing to Modi or being a follower.
You're front runners carrying the flaming propaganda torch ahead to set places on fire.
Manisha: So this is another order and you're right. Umar Khalid happened way before anyone figured. I think honestly, later on, Umar Khalid woke up.
Seema: People are being beaten up on sex. You're organizing all that with a view. And the kind of people you go to when you want Mr.
Modi criticized. I mean, that's clearly there. If you're going to position a daadi, topi, It's only a Hindu Muslim framing and, and [00:34:00] of course, sheer hate. I saw a tweet put out by a very senior woman anchor whom you name continuously. We used to know her well. And she asked for videos on Holi ka pata nahi kya aur Holi ka pata nahi kya aur Ramzan ki deewar.
Put, make videos on this and send it to us.
Abhinandan: You know, did Sudhir ever talk about these PhD scholars wasting taxpayers money and all? But now he's the one who wants to set up his own production house on taxpayers money. The whole that, which now India has also reported. Not just
Manisha: that, he's done a whole show on why do these young people want Sarkari jobs.
Why don't they do something with their lives? Why can't they be entrepreneurs? Why do you want
Abhinandan: a Sarkari channel to pay a production house to do this? 15 crore. Not Sarkari,
Seema: it's your and my money.
Abhinandan: This is public money, more Sarkari. So after all those lectures, I was like,
Manisha: someone got a
Abhinandan: Sarkari job. But on
Manisha: the patriot thing, I just wanted to chip in.
I consider myself a huge patriot to the point that sometimes I'm very petty also. In the sense that I'm happy to criticize [00:35:00] India. But if a foreigner criticized India, I get very like defensive. I'll downplay. Even things that I rant about, I'll be like, no, no, no, but it's not like that in India. So, I think, I don't consider right wing, what is there, what does it rest on patriotism?
It is just an exclusion of a certain people. That's it. There's no love for your country. There's no genuine desire to see your country progress. How much of the right wing talking point is about Where can India go ahead? Just look at the conversations around these patriotic channels this week. It's just Aurangzeb 17th century.
How many of them actually really are invested in wanting your country to grow ahead? I would feel like the Chinese are probably more patriotic about their country. Talking of
Seema: China, all these Harvard grads and all are now joining Chinese AI startups. Look at where China is. They've made a sixth generation fighter jet.
See you summit next week, we are doing something, we are doing some 75, 000 girls have, it's a Dainik Bhaskar back page story. And there's 111 foot [00:36:00] long basuri, et cetera. You're stuck there. And this is actually a goodish side, nothing wrong with 111 meter basuri, but you're going after like. People doing all this Aurangzeb nonsense.
What are we talking about? In 11 years, where's China? Where's us? But to your point, Manisha, the
Abhinandan: feeling of love, devotion and sense of attachment to a country or state is how patriotism is defined. In
Manisha: that
Abhinandan: context. But that doesn't mean
Manisha: I have to go with whichever government is in power. It's a love for country,
Seema: people, rather than blind devotion.
But the people you
Manisha: love, you also question them a lot. So I think questioning is very much part. If you love your country, you are going to question where it's going. What is it thinking? What are the top leaders doing?
Seema: I don't want the lives of fellow country persons to be better. I think that's the essence of patriotism.
Rather than, you know, that Virat Kohli will be hated if he loses this match. But when you say love for country,
Abhinandan: what What is love for country? What does that mean? What exactly, what are you loving? What is it? My
Manisha: people, my geography, my culture.
Abhinandan: So your people, you, you, you. But, but, but even, even, uh, the BJP and the RSS is also our people, right?
So, I [00:37:00] mean,
Manisha: yeah, I mean, um, so I do love them to someone who's an outsider. No, no, I don't, you don't have to love each and every person in the country as a
Abhinandan: collective,
Manisha: but there's an idea. certain sense of geography, obviously, to your country that I have a conception of a north, a south, a coastline, Himalayas.
So of course, it exists within a framework, a special love for people who reside within this geography, which is, you can say it's. It's silly because somebody can do a line when it's
Abhinandan: silly or not, but I'm just, it is a limiting thing. You're absolutely right. We should, we should
Seema: love humanity and therefore, you know, Vasudev Kutumbakam has been so dumbed down now.
It's a beautiful sentiment when you're saying the world's my family, which passports actually militate against and all these people who have to take your American or European passports have to pledge by the flag and say, we will not be loyal to any other country, only loyalties. to us or whatever. So you're right.
It's ultimately limiting. But even in that limited framework, there's a way of being civilized about [00:38:00] it and loving your country, but not being exclusivist and being
Manisha: moronic. But love for country need not mean that you have to support the government is what my point is. You don't have to go with what the government of the day wants you to do or wants.
Country is
Seema: not government. Country does
Abhinandan: not. But I'm just saying of course Seema and Manish have really made my Utterance is very polite because they are politer than me. I did not use the word limiting. I said it's primitive. So it is, I think, a primitive concept. And again, you know, just the way I look at it, what, what do I, you know, what gives you goosebumps?
Like when I hear that song, um, of Bapu deti hume aazadi bina khadak bina dhaal, I feel really good. I get, I get gooseflesh that, you know, that. Cause for me, I'm proud of Bapu. So I think history is a part of what I love. I don't fucking love the people. I think when I go out, they frustrate me every day.
They can't stand in line. They fucking spit. [00:39:00] Yeah. So I have no love for the people. And again, I don't think you have to love even though that humanity, I don't have your love humanity. Fuck humanity. If you don't like humanity, you have to. aligned to a certain value system and that value system you align to no matter where on the globe it exists.
For example, I think Che again, I want, I can get into another discussion, whether Che was a good person or a bad person. And he was gray, like many others. And many morons who haven't read anything about him have very extreme views on him, but he believed in. a value system. Now, he fought for a country that was not his.
Then he went and fought for another country that was not his because he believed in that value system. So I think he was a front runner in what patriotism means in that sense. So I don't think you have to love anyone or anything. You have to just align yourself with the value system and that's what we do.
And at least for me, Why? I'm, I'm not proud of being Indian, but I am proud of certain things that India has contributed. And in that, I think there are certain poems, [00:40:00] certain people, you know, certain songs that really make you feel that, yeah, I'm from this cultural heritage, but my value system has nothing to do with that.
So, which is why I, I think if any regular person who is out there you want to sit and think. What do I love? And what am I actually endorsing? They would really rethink what patriotism means to them.
Manisha: No, but I think again, you're, you're, you're saying that values are fixed.
Abhinandan: No, they could be fluid. I could
Manisha: be a person who loves my country and I want certain values, you know, to take center stage in my country and I fight for that.
So it's not that India stands for values and now I'll stand behind those values. They may not have, like for caste, for example, we repeatedly, we're frustrated with the fact of why are we so cast as why can't we get over this cleanliness to make it even simpler. Doesn't mean I'm going to stand behind India because those values exist, but I want those values to be better.
So it's a desire to see your country better. You have to give
Seema: Manisha and me a little gate pass on this because say India in 1950. [00:41:00] Who am I? No, you know what I mean? No. While we're speaking on this, because see, India stood up our constitution in 1950, which is what these people, the so called trolls and all the so called trads, whatever are up against.
So there there's an alignment of value in place. So if India tomorrow decides to scrap its constitution and say, we will only worship people who wear a certain color and the rest of you. I don't know if my love, my patriotism would transcend into love for those people. So that's where you're right. Part of my love from India comes from the fact that Nagaland, Kerala and all came not to become Hindi speaking Hindus.
They came because there was a common pledge to, you know, secure it to social justice, to equality, the right to freedom. So we'll all do better together. Not because we're the same. That's why the whole, I think, idea of Indian nationhood is very different from the nationalism. That's why, I mean, the Hindu right wants to call itself Hindu nationalist, because it gives them a credibility which they never had.
They don't stand behind this India. They didn't embrace the tricolour. So I think that's [00:42:00] where we have a little There is an alignment of value and the India that is that we live in today. If that was to be scrapped, I don't know if So I
Manisha: think to push a country towards those values.
Seema: Correct. It's not just, and there's a special duty I feel I have to work towards that rather than push Pakistan towards those values.
To be very honest. All the Burmese also for that matter. All the other
Dhanya: controversies going on now, right? Like delimitation or Hindi imposition. It all comes from this very, um, concept of what is idea of India. For example, there is a section of people who are saying that do not impose a homogenize. What is your thought of India on us?
We are, uh, I was reading these speeches from the constituent assembly where the Tamil MPs have, uh, uh, for example, said that do I become patriotic only because when I speak Hindi, for example, did you ask me when you were making a nation? I, I was here with you because I was patriotic, right? Anna has said this in parliament.
So the point is, uh, when you're challenging that notion that you have to behave in a certain way, your values have to align with me, otherwise you're not patriotic. I think [00:43:00] that is a problem that we are facing here, that there's a doubt in people's mind that, okay, if I do not align with that, then I'm, am I against India?
Because they've already conflated what is government and what is nation. People are not able to see the difference. A lot of people are not able to see the difference. And because we're talking about international students and values, I am very shocked that the right wing, for example, is very happy.
Ranjini has been, has said, has been forced to self deport simply because she stood for her values. Right. And we are like, Oh, the moment you leave your country. You cannot have those values. You just have to be a student and be in that box that they give you. Now they're not okay with people protesting here.
Also, you can't have those values here also because the government of this day has changed its policy. So I feel like, um, But I think the celebration of the right
Manisha: wing is at least something very base. It's just that
it's just that there's nothing to do with that there
Seema: is a kind of a, they feel that value alignment and we are actually maybe 40 years on and people will record these times. The kind of [00:44:00] thirties moment is upon us now that you have this alignment. So actually Mr. Trump's USA will be very hostile to Indians, but India welcomes that shift because that fundamental, they sense, they sense the oneness that we will.
Patronize the white American, whatever, the WASP, you do the Hindu thing, no problem. And with Hungary, they recognize their lot. So we're actually in that moment. I
Abhinandan: think the mindset that actually determines this, uh, interpretation of the world order is similar to how mafia divides up territories. That boss?
South Bombay is yours, Chota Shakeel says, this is yours, do what the fuck you want to the people, you want to beat them up, you want to carry out, but don't come here. So I think that is the kind of mindset that determines, okay, you want to beat up, you know, you want to beat up minorities there, go ahead.
You do yours. We'll do ours. And if that means, you know, our people are beaten up, fine, but, but there [00:45:00] is no alignment of values in a broader sense. It is just
Seema: value if you want to call it that, a prejudice, bigotry, you recognize the other bigot, power at any cost, power on those terms, not power because you're an Obama or, you know, you're an FDR power because you behave like Andrew Jackson and worse.
Telegra because that allows us to do our number here. You know,
All: we can do our No, but you know, I was
Dhanya: wondering today, uh, Trump has actually, uh, given an executive order to disband the Department of Education,
Abhinandan: which actually is illegal because congress has to No, no. The point is, and I was reading
Dhanya: about it, that apparently 90% of education, the US is with the states.
Yeah. So the 10% also, he's now going to give away to the states. There's no fed, there's no federal control over education anymore. So I was wondering, will Modiji do that now? Because if you believe in the same value system, take away education from concurrent list, no? Give it to the states. So I'm like, it's also about choice.
You don't want to do certain things that they do, but you align on basic things like bigotry, patriarchy, and whatever free market or whatever you call it. Yeah.
Abhinandan: [00:46:00] So I would like to move on to the next subject I want to discuss with our wonderful esteemed panel. But before that, I want to remind everybody, here's a QR code again.
Pay to keep news free, support the News Minute, the News Laundry Project on police atrocities. I think we've already done a couple of stories on this, Manisha, if I'm not wrong. We've
Manisha: done the stories on Hindutva.
Abhinandan: Right. But on this one, work has started, they haven't been published yet. So do contribute. The last I checked, we aren't even 50 percent up to the amount that we need to actually fund these stories.
You have to make sure journalists and producers are comfortable so that they can do their jobs well. And that should be done by you willingly, not through Sarkari ads or Doordarshan money. without your consent, um, like has been done for certain prominent, uh, news personalities. Now, I want to start off this with our guest from the South.
And we were discussing this this morning before we started recording. [00:47:00] And there's something that we've touched upon very briefly on Hafta or other podcasts and panels as well. And in fact, I I make this point whenever, uh, you know, I'm asked this, especially on international panels, tell us about Indian media.
And I always first say, I can tell you about the Hindi and the English media, news media. I cannot tell you what Indian media, cause it's very fragmented. So the question I want to throw to the panel here is the English news media has less than two percent. of viewership and readership across the country.
You know, there are many language medias like Tamil, Malayalam, Marathi media, which which have a larger audience, often as much and many times in few instances, larger audience. Yet what English media does has an outsized influence on whether it is policy, on whether it is narrative setting, on whether it is the attack that happens on us.
Like news laundries. Traffic would probably be [00:48:00] less than many Tamil and Marathi sites. But yet, when we do a story, we get threats, whether it's directly or indirectly or through text, etc. When Arnab does a shouting match, he has a fraction, fraction of the viewership in India. So in sheer numbers, it is less, especially compared to South media, which is very robust.
Why do you think that is? Because if it's just electoral politics, our readership is much smaller in sheer numbers. Why does English media have an outsized influence on narrative setting, policy, politics, and general? Dhanyawaad, why do you think? Because you consume, because you speak. She was boasting to me, I know Turkish, I know Malayalam, I know Hindi.
I know, I said you don't know Hindi. She said, I know Tamil. Can I just? She named me seven languages. No, no,
Manisha: no. I'll give this answer in Hindi. Can I first? No, no. Before this. Can I explain to people how she knows Turkish? Yes. How? It's the most ridiculous thing I've heard. What? She loves watching [00:49:00] Turkish serials.
And she watches the serial and she watches it again and again and again. So she just learns the dialogues. No, and then I switch off the subtitles, so
Dhanya: I know the, I, So she switches
Manisha: off the subtitles and she re watches it, so she knows what they're saying, so she thinks she knows Turkish.
Dhanya: I, not I think, I do know.
Okay, uh, So I'll talk in Hindi, okay?
Abhinandan: No, people get upset if we talk in Hindi because we have a separate Hindi podcast.
Dhanya: That's the only reason why. I don't know. See, I have always wondered this. For example, I was telling Abhinandan that when the Kerala floods happened, uh, no, actually not the Kerala floods, the Chennai floods happened, uh, I think, uh, 2010, no, no, sorry, sorry, 2015, the Chennai floods, the English media was sleeping on it for the first one and a half days and people were desperately tweeting saying that, uh, you know, please start covering.
And I was wondering why are we telling them to cover? I don't know. Because Tamil media is covering it. That time online proliferation was not this high, 2015, right?
Abhinandan: So it was being covered in Tamil [00:50:00] media robustly.
Dhanya: Robustly. But everybody is saying English media, why are you not covering? And I ask myself, why are we asking English media to cover it?
Perhaps because people in Delhi Um, who are supposed to even send money, uh, and, you know, help, uh, help the state are watching it in English or in Hindi. That is the reason why we want the Delhi, I, I'm now starting to call it Delhi media and not national media anymore. Noida media you can say, NCR media, whatever, Delhi media is fine for me.
So that's why Delhi media, one is economics and the second is policy. I mean, we assume that people who make policy law, et cetera, are sitting and watching English channels. Or Hindi channels. I don't know if they watch Hindi channels. And that's the reason why people want to place their stories on an English channel, right?
I don't see any other utility of it. In fact, because I worked on a, in a TV channel for around eight years, I can now see the dangers of even placing it on a TV channel in English. Like for example, a few years ago, there was a protest in Bengaluru where they had blackened the metro signs because it had only English and Hindi and they said, why not in Kannada?[00:51:00]
Uh, And I remember I was working for an English channel. So my coverage was like, Kannada activists go rogue and why are they doing this violence? But today I understand the positioning of that story was so wrong. It was that fight was against the imposition of a language, right? And I feel that the way they Even these stories, which are very state specific, how they're projected in national media, I don't think it's of any use.
So now I have stopped insisting that English media should cover. I'm actually very happy if they don't cover it.
Abhinandan: So, what you're saying is it's the economics, because whether it's aid, whether it is, you know, the people who will actually contribute, are largely English speaking? We assume. So, but that is why, uh, so, you know, Seema, you have an insight into the media, you know, probably more than anyone else at this table because you guys do a great job understanding
Seema: media.
But,
Abhinandan: but I remember back in the day, I don't know what the circulation numbers are now, but at print, not print as in the website, but print as a, as the, as the format newspapers peak, I think the, uh, Indian [00:52:00] express, but maybe not at this week, but there was a certain time in the late 2000s when, uh, I was talking to someone, this is the, Indian Express circulation was lakh or something.
And the Times of India circulation was of course in, you know, several times that. And someone from the Express, uh, said that, uh, I may have a fraction of the coverage,
Manisha: but
Abhinandan: my newspaper can make and break policy because every policymaker reads my newspaper. All the important people read that. So there's
Seema: one of that.
Is it that? I think partly economics are absolutely right with this conception of the readership. Secondly, somebody, Some people everywhere read English. So your ability to go pan national and to be global is critical. It's understood easily. And English does the big narrative setting. And also for historical reasons of who has wealth, where is the caste, who has more space on social media, that has only amplified the importance and necessity of English.
So I think English does that job. It's almost shorthand for the elite. And I mean elite [00:53:00] in a good sense too. That they are educated. person's well read because he's speaking in English. He'll probably know one more Indian language, which is okay, which is limiting in terms of geography. This will make it big.
So I think that way English is almost shorthand for a lot of things that speak for what the big guys think. So Mr. Modi's writing op eds in English newspapers. Why should he have to do that? He's got the electoral game covered if Hindi is completely under, you should just, you guys know what the Hindi papers and all and what they do, but over and above that, he has to have a voice.
in English media, because till that happens, it doesn't kind of go well. When you look at even the Gujarat violence of 2002, the Gujarati media was very clearly on his side. It's a chief minister of Gujarat, but the English media could clear the pitch completely because it's kind of. Pan national, it's economic basis, it's caste basis, also assumed things that you add on English knowing people.
And also the fact that if it's in The Economist or in English media in India, it'll be read internationally. [00:54:00] And that's like, international part is very, very important. How does
Manisha: the world understand you? How does the world understand you? Somebody in Columbia
Seema: University, I mean, this is the pre kind of Trumpian kind of a phase, will agree about you.
Somebody in VDEM is accessing that news quickly, easily. So I think that's why government is very clear. It's setting up all these committees to try and game indices and all so that English media should not run all this. And that's the power of English.
Abhinandan: So at least in the past decade, Manisha, you've been observing this and scrutinizing this.
And interrogating the media, you know, more closely than anyone else. Do you think that responsibility is understood by them that or that privilege? It's not just responsible at least the english prime time debates use that as a privilege and they just shout any shit Whether it is a prime time, you know debate on ori.
Why is that even a thing? Like there are other stuff to wait or do you think there's another reason and does that still hold or is it diminishing?
Manisha: But I think We have to make a distinction. I think English newspapers have quite an outsized influence, [00:55:00] but not English news channels anymore. Hindi news channels are way more important in setting the narrative, even making the government a little uncomfortable because Hindi is consumed by way more people and especially electorally, it matters more.
So English channels can do whatever they want, but. If an aaj tak shows a kumbh stampede, that's serious trouble for the government and they would want to kind of fix that. So I think in terms of narrative setting, English newspapers are still more important because the bureaucrats are reading it, the judges are reading it, everyone in Delhi who's important, the Latins elite is reading it and you know that kind of shapes their understanding of what to do or what the criticism is.
But news channels, I don't think English news channels have any kind of say. Or influence. Hindi news channels have a way more outsized influence. Increasingly, I've also noticed since we've been traveling across India for elections. 2022 onwards, a lot of, and you can see this in closer to the election, at least one month [00:56:00] towards the election.
Most politicians today prefer giving interviews to YouTube channels than even bigger media organizations because the numbers are there.
Abhinandan: So the
Manisha: influence when you want to actually reach out to people, make a difference or impact your election,
Abhinandan: then you reach out to local language to the
Manisha: point that sometimes we meet politicians like who may know of News Laundry.
You know, state leaders who like our work, but they're very like your audience. Our audience are elected. People are going to vote for us. Don't watch you. So we have to really run after them that please give us an interview. They are focusing on the local YouTubers on the local channels and they'll make the English guys, even from Delhi.
Are you saying in English? English
Dhanya: channel does not have enough influence now on policy or bureaucrats or politicians. I mean, I understand that during elections to get their word across, they will use YouTube and et cetera. But I'm saying generally, for example, uh, if it's in a policy and they report something.
Who is the
Manisha: most watched English channel right now? Um, in terms of TRPs, [00:57:00] News18, but I don't think anyone's watching CNN, News18, even I'm in the policy circles, even politicians actually. Even within the government, often they're very unaware of what these anchors are doing. But that's
Abhinandan: because they've made themselves irrelevant from a time when majority of the commentary there or the debates were by politicians of consequence.
Now the commentary there is by either the real chappus of the party, karo, or it is the babas and babis and panditjis and whatever it is. So the people who are there are also of no consequence. So
Manisha: one change that we've noticed within the last few years only, I remember when India's Daughter was going to be aired, NDTV had decided that it's going to show India's Daughter, which was a documentary on the December 16 gang rape case.
Arnab did this whole thing on Times, now ban it, how can you do it? It's an insult to India. And the next day, Radhnath reacted and said, we're banning the film. So that was, Kind of an outsized impact, but I don't think Arnab
Seema: can have that today. I want to know, was that an impact or was Times Now asked to do that?
[00:58:00] Because they wanted to ban it. It could be either way. So we don't know that. No, no, no, no, no. The call for ban preceded. But what he's saying is we don't know if it was
Manisha: choreographed. It could be choreographed. You're doing that scene setting before. I know that's choreographed. Choreography is done. I mean, I do think.
And one day. So it makes sense. But I think Rajnath. To me seemed pretty clueless when he, before this was not a controversy. It could be that your supporters
Seema: wanted ban. So you do a lot of things like this, uh, uh, business on Grok is because their supporters want the government to do something. So doing something so silly as going after questioners that who's.
Prompting grok. You can't tell Musk anything. You have to satisfy your people who are saying, what's going on? So you do the question, questioners. There is this concept in social media. There is Cory Doctorow is this Canadian dude, I'm sure you know of him. He's a scholar. He's studies kind of information and political science and all that.
He's come up with this wonderful concept called n shitification. And shitification he speaks of vis a vis social media networks and big platforms, which first start great, then in the quest for money, et cetera, they just dump [00:59:00] crap on themselves. So they actually end shit and it dies out. So how Facebook has also does not have that kind of a, it has like a, it's like the internet for a lot of people, but it doesn't have that outline because it is dumb.
It's, you know, I think that should, I'm hoping it does apply to English news channels. To a point that they've just rendered themselves so spectacularly out of the, you know, they've just gone off. But papers
Manisha: still have an influence. Papers do. Papers are still dressing up their
Seema: propaganda more cleverly.
Like when an Indian Express
Manisha: does a story on raids on opposition politicians, that data story that they had put out, that really rattled the government. But I have a question here, the economics
Dhanya: of the channels. If we are saying that they are not very influential and they're going to end shitify themselves at some point.
They still, they still make a lot of money through advertisement. Advertisers are still going to them, right? So are advertisers thinking, uh, or exaggerating the influence which English news channels have?
Abhinandan: But I think that comes to the purchasing power. The purchasing power is with the English speaker. But if you're saying a lot of people are not even watching it.
[01:00:00] But, but just the numbers
Seema: are there. I do think the advertisers are outsizing it. But it's shifting. 160 million is also like the size of a European country. No, even if it's a
Abhinandan: small proportion. But see, I don't know how many people are watching it. I think the numbers are
all over the place. You know, do read our backstory, et cetera.
It's a
Seema: safety thing that you just advertise because you're doing it. It's a, it's a, it's a reflex. Stop
Dhanya: it, people. Stop it.
Abhinandan: But there's just one thing that I want. So, you know, the, what you said about, you know, them being a little more aware. And like you said, I, and I've, you know, said this before and after.
Back in the, before News Laundry started in the, you know, 2000s, when I used to go around shooting documentary films and travel shows, etc. I was blown away by, you know, children in rural Rajasthan. I went to this place called Kuttumbakkam, which is on the border of, uh, I think Karnataka and Tamil Nadu, where they make those first aid kits for the UN peacekeepers, etc.
It's a cottage industry. I was [01:01:00] I was doing a documentary film on, you know, the, cause I used to meet a lot of the South Delhi journalists who were in their twenties. Uh, I was, I guess in my thirties at the time, but they were in their mid to early twenties. Their understanding of governance was dismal.
They did not know what an SDM did. They did not know what an SDM was like the kid. in that, uh, village, knew that if his water is not working, which is the guy he has to go to, when he has to go to the Junior Ranjanay, when he has to go to the SDM, the MPs bloody useless, he can't do anything. Here they will stuff my MPs, this is not happening.
Of course, MP will not say that dude, I cannot make fuck happen. I mean, I have no control there, but he's not going to say that because it makes him look stupid. So that paradox, the other thing is that when I have met some very young scholars and in, uh, Marathi media, because Hindi is not a barrier because most, I think I may be wrong, but Hindi is closest to Marathi.[01:02:00]
Some really young kids in Maharashtra, it's a lot more evolved and, uh, nuanced commentary there, especially on caste, et cetera, which English media doesn't have. So that, what is padha likha? is very contextual, you know, in the sense of some of the most ignorant people. And I will not take the name here, but one very famous case that is still laughed at.
And all my friends in broadcast will know who I'm talking about. A very respected edger was sitting with all the journalists and we're talking about all these RGD and Nitish you know, they all. come from the, you know, Lohiite movement and they're all fighting each other. So this editor says, so we should go interview Ram Manohar Lohia.
And so I had to say that actually he died a few decades ago. This person was a senior editor at a broadcast network and my friends who are watching this know who we
Manisha: students, when we talk to students in [01:03:00] universities, I find the most politically evolved students to be Language speakers, not Maharashtra, but like Hindi speakers or not English speakers, I rarely find anything.
So, so this is not to endorse
Seema: the fact of why. You know, but it's the perception that English is your, you've, if you've learned English, then you must have gone to a, like a reasonable school, et cetera. This is not to say about how educated others are. Number two, even if I have the most evolved discussion on a Marathi case, supposing there's a big debate on Jyotiba Phule versus the RSS, et cetera, ideas in Maharashtra.
For it to jump. That for it to jump that state and come out, English provides a link language for that story to travel out. It's almost like a boat that you take it out into other languages. Otherwise, you keep having an evolved debate in Marathi. It remains a Maharashtrian issue. But if you want to make it national and English outlet picks it up, then, you know, there can be a Telugu version.
Somebody in Bengal will wake up and find commonalities and do stories. So English
Dhanya: has that power. No, that's a very important point. That's where digital media became disruptive. [01:04:00] because before we were very dependent on these English news channels or English newspapers to be that link, which takes a story from a rural, you know, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and take it to Delhi.
So it's a link. Yeah. Yeah. Now we also have a website, so we are not that dependent on the media, but even then there is a utility for. a coverage by a newspaper or a channel in English, unfortunately.
Manisha: But yours is an interesting case because you're working, I mean, your core is language, different languages, but your website is English.
You think like you would have more of an influence, suppose, like would Newsminute, Tamil? Have more influence than a news minute. English talking
Dhanya: about Tamil. 100%.
Manisha: But I'd say that the
Seema: fact that you are news minute in English
Dhanya: Oh like that.
Seema: Existing is what is your megaphone. So you channelize all that Tamil, Kannada, Telugu, Tulu, whatever you plan.
The fact that you're the big funnel for that would be English. That gives a big multiplier.
Dhanya: I would I would actually prefer in all [01:05:00] languages. English plus the other languages, because there is separate utility for both, right? There are people who read English who understand, but there are also policymakers, even politicians.
Lot of them read only in their local language. So I would want to write in that so that people understand.
Abhinandan: Right. Sorry, just you
Dhanya: know
Seema: that you raise a very important point, but maybe you should have another show on that. On this whole business of why are politicians going to YouTube influencers? Why is even Shah Rukh Khan going to bad comedians on YouTube?
Dhanya: Really?
Seema: Power of also cinema. Why has the CM's first interviews which were like eight, nine hours long, whatever, with three journalists questioning him, tanked on his thing. But so he had to get these Kapoors in place. He went to Nikhil Kamath, he went to Zerodha CEO guys, then he went to Lex, etc. So which is a big shift.
And they must have been really concerned that Mr. Modi is not able to draw those numbers. And that showed in the Lok Sabha polls. So YouTube functions as some sort of a gauge, a very, sometimes misleading gauge, et cetera. But it is some kind of a barometer [01:06:00] of who's watching, et cetera. And people are moving to that.
But that's like another story because podcasts are like, really Abhinandan? Oh, oh, is that right, Dhania? It's not a question of Manisha, like, why didn't you do this? It's just like allowing you to, you know, it's like a fawning.
Abhinandan: Yeah, I guess it also depends on the podcast, but I, uh, I was talking to someone and I think we are misreading or not quite understanding Modi's uh, entire interview strategy.
And I think on that, on his communication side, it is very well thought out and it's not always about numbers, it's about which is the audience he's appealing to. There was a time when he wanted to appeal to the mainstream media watching audience and the mainstream media. Has a lot of traffic that does not get either hooked onto the Bark or onto the website because it goes via WhatsApp and Manisha has discussed as well.
It does get shared a lot. So that is why he was also appeasing them to set that narrative setting. [01:07:00] He achieved that. Then for sheer numbers he was going to the YouTube influencers because he, the social media game, he was way ahead of all his contemporaries. I think with this Lex Luthor or whatever his name is, this guy.
He's actually appealing to, Lex Luthor was the villain in Superman. Exactly, yeah. But I don't know, he's Lex only this much. His newfound love for the Videshi podcaster, he's not even looking to get the numbers in India. His audience is that audience so that that audience can influence that country. So he is identifying who he gives his interview to, not by numbers.
What message he wants to give to what audience. So the Zeroda is not about numbers. It's about a particular audience he wants to reach out to. Yeah, the
Manisha: young entrepreneurs. The lex is not about
Abhinandan: numbers, it is who he is reaching. Yeah, it is. So he is talking to the international audience here. He's not even talking to the Indian audience.
Seema: And now he's on Truth Social, so.
Abhinandan: Yeah, and he's only following Vance and [01:08:00] Trump. And he doesn't
Dhanya: want any real questions.
Abhinandan: Yeah, that toh unka. But
Dhanya: this
Manisha: podcast is very boring.
Abhinandan: I think Mr. Modi has become very boring generally. You know, he was a compelling watch earlier. He's just really boring to watch now.
She's even
Seema: though
Abhinandan: I would really want is
Seema: exhausting. So I think, you know, countries do get tired, bored of like people. So yeah, it is quite boring.
Abhinandan: And that, that whole Osho type thing of his, he ends every sentence with a sheesh. You know, even Osho used to talk for too long,
Manisha: like for half an hour, they're discussing fasting.
Why do you fast? Who are the lift himself above being
Seema: a. public representative who's meant to, although I think
Manisha: it would be really, if he genuinely gives
Seema: a
Manisha: long interview feeling, it'll be great fun to watch. I think there'll be a lot because all said and done, the man has been in politics for so long. If he genuinely just talks even about politics and his.
actual view of politics. It would be interesting to [01:09:00] watch, but it's so curated. It's so like, fakir.
Abhinandan: Right. So, um, let's get onto the emails, uh, before we wind up the podcast. Now, I just want to point out many subscribers are kind of dissatisfied with how many emails we are introducing. Some say the emails should be read as part of the hafta rather than a special hafta we have separately.
Just to give you context, I have 51 emails right now, and many of them are over the 150 word, word limit, and one is 932 words, just saying. So if you were to read all of them, this podcast would be five hours long, at least. So we're figuring out how we should break up the emails, should we have a separate podcast?
And Perisai Teja, you have written three emails, and you're saying newsletter emails are going down the RTI route. Dude, I've read three of your emails. And so many people have written for the first time, so I will read your email, but we are [01:10:00] not purposely sidelining your email. 52 emails to read in this episode.
Poor Seema, Manish and Dhanyal will be here forever. So I'll read a few and we will be having a meeting later next week to figure out, let's try to address as many emails as possible. There are a few ways of doing it. So do write to me gmail. com. So you can suggest how we actually break this up. One suggestion that was given by one of my colleagues here is reduce the word limit to 100.
I think that will, you guys will not be able to really articulate what you want to say. One is we put a little box here. We throw in chits and we pull out that we will only read 10 emails. And if it, if your email is one of them, so it's a transparent way of doing it. We will. Read the emails, at least I do Manisha, do you?
We may not read them out. So we are getting your feedback, but let's say this 50 becomes 100 and I hope it does and I hope it comes [01:11:00] 500. There is just a limitation of times. So if you have any ideas how to address this while continuing the tradition of news laundry, of having this engagement of subscribers, let's do that.
And one of you have written that can a subscriber come on a podcast? We had several podcasts with just the subscribers and we'll be doing one again this year. So wait for that. So, uh, let's go with the ones marked in the color, uh, banisha this week and we'll leave the rest for now. And uh, we'll definitely have one more hafta letters only podcast.
And then once your recommendations come in, we'll figure out how do we include the emails,
Manisha: but we re we do read all the emails. So that's important. Like in terms of if the main purpose is to let your feedback reach us, it does reach us every week.
Abhinandan: So we'll choose the ones with a shorter right now.
Manisha: So, man, she says, I want to appreciate you for inviting Dr.
Makar in Hafta 5 2 7 to discuss the events in Mara. It makes a big difference when a panelist has a genuine lived experience while talking about a region. When it comes to Mara, I feel, I find NL Hafta discussions, which are [01:12:00] so nuanced, otherwise, to be overly reliant on older. Themes like Shiv Sena's policies in the 90s, example by Abhinandan.
Or limited example, Anand restricting Shivaji to be a symbol of resistance against outsiders. As someone who went to a state school in Mumbai and learned English, Hindi and Marathi, I didn't get the hoopla around the three language formula. But Jayshree's comments in Hafta 526 helped me understand the context of Tamil Nadu.
This is why local voices are so valuable. I hope you can continue to be a platform for those with current nuanced views on regional topics. I completely agree. Atleast that hafta was
Abhinandan: Yeah, even I learned so much from him. Just to understand
Manisha: that whole Aurangzeb thing and what the fight really was, was very interesting.
Abhinandan: And another, you know
Manisha: And then again, English media dumbs it down so much. Like that kind of nuance you can only get from him.
Abhinandan: Exactly. And we not always lucky with guests because sometimes a guest is really good academically but he's just not an enthusiastic speaker you really have to get him to like we've had hafta guests when you read their writings are amazing but when they come here they'll like give you a one line answer so then it [01:13:00] becomes very difficult so you have to find that perfect and i think you know the professor was a magic as far as hafta is concerned it's a one line Vinod
Manisha: says have you Hope you stayed up to watch Newcastle play Liverpool.
Abhinandan: Vinod, yes I did. And what an upset. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I love an underdog story.
Manisha: Hmm. Yashveer Beniwal says, Hey folks, first time writer here. Long time lurker. Enthusiastic eavesdropper. Been tuning in for the past three years every week. Hearing the tariff talk, I was instantly reminded of this Ray Dalio video, which in my humble opinion explains things better than my brain ever could.
Would love to hear your thoughts on it. And Abhinandanji, please don't let the complainers get to you. You're a national treasure, part philosopher, part comedian, and 100 percent unfiltered greatness. Shine on you. Glorious gem.
Abhinandan: Yashveer, thank you so much. You are in the minority on this because a lot of people feel I'm just the unnecessary appendage on Hafta.
No, no one feels that. So many [01:14:00] people
Manisha: want you to host, that's very clear. No one has said, they may hate you as a host, but they still want you to host it.
Abhinandan: So, Yashveer, uh, I really enjoyed this video, by the way. I did watch it. I'll
Manisha: watch it. But
Abhinandan: the link is in the show notes. Do, uh, check this link out. And these are the kind of inputs that our subscribers give, which
Manisha: Ray Dalio.
Abhinandan: Yeah.
Manisha: Who is this philosopher?
Abhinandan: He's not a philosopher. He's, he's described as, I believe the world is changing in big ways and that has haven't happened before in a lifetime and have many times in our history. I mean, you can check out his book Changing World. Mahesh
Manisha: says, Hi team, NL programs refer to the Indian Express story refuting that 21 million dollar grant to CEPPS.
Someone dismissed the story on the grounds that IE is a Congress outfit. Really?
Abhinandan: Who dismissed it? I
Manisha: don't remember. This is a very strong thing to say we would have countered it if someone did. I just wanted to inquire whether NL does fact checking on such external stories and only puts out independently validated story.
There's a lot of [01:15:00] claim. There's a lot of pussy footing on many media outlets about IE's claims. I understand it's important to give due credit, but I think it's also important to put out authenticated stories. It would have been better if NL had said it had authenticated IE's claims. I don't. I don't know what this is about, actually.
There's a reply there?
Abhinandan: I'll tell you, yeah. Finish. My
Manisha: series recommendation, The Newsroom, sometimes I feel Abhinandan is a desi Don Quixote, aka Jeff Daniels. Hat tip for the team's excellent work. NL Hafta, Charcha, South Central and Newsense are my only sources of news. Abhinandan and Rajshri make ANA awesome.
Abhinandan: I sidestepped the world limit using acronyms. Well done, buddy. So, uh, what Mahesh is talking about is that, um, when they said that USAID was giving 21 million for election interference, quote unquote, in India, it was actually going to Bangladesh. And then someone said, actually it was coming to India, it is not just Bangladesh.
So at least Mahesh, everyone here can speak for themselves. For me, the source has value. The brand [01:16:00] has value. So if, let's say, NPR puts something out, I think it is an extremely responsible organization that will give accurate information. If for example, Alt News puts out a fact check, I think it will be fact check.
It is highly unlikely they'll put out something that is factually inaccurate. So in that sense, the Indian Express, the brand matters to me. So if they have done that, I will not do independent fact checking. And that is true for brand. It is also true for Journalists and the other journalists or the other platforms that are not just follow blindly.
So that is at least my measure. It's not an exact science like a mathematical formula, but generally that's how it is for me. No. And also,
Dhanya: I mean, I wouldn't follow anyone blindly, but there are some stories which are not possible for us to fact check independently. Therefore we have to attribute to them.
But here, if the express story was wrong, the pushback from the government would have been. Huge, which didn't come, uh, and the government could have put out some proof, right, which they didn't. So I guess [01:17:00] we can safely assume that the story was right. I mean, the only thing was from Amit Malviya, who will tweet about mangoes falling.
But
Manisha: this is Jai Majumdar's story. And also it's important to know that the stories explained its sources and how it reached that number and where it went to find out. Exactly. Methodology matters. So that's a good story.
Abhinandan: How do you deal with this? I mean, do you have to fact check anything that you quote?
Do you have to fact check it independently or is the brand enough? I think
Seema: gut, not sometimes always the brand, but sometimes brands can do like crazy things in today's vitiated media atmosphere. But we can't fact check everything. You go between a mix of gut, your assessment of who's putting it out, when it is being put out, and the methodology.
And here they did not say we have it on credible sources. This is it. They conjectured. So,
Dhanya: you know, they were not exceeding their brief. And I want to add something. Now newspapers in India forever have ignored each other's existence. For example, Hindu breaks a story, Indian Express will write about the same story without acknowledging the Hindu.
But websites like us, we don't work like that. For example, I will call Seema and [01:18:00] tell her that this story is coming. Can you read it? Do you think it's good enough? Do you want to republish it? Then I will tell her what is the evidence or methodology we followed. Same she would do to me or we talk to Scroll, we talk to News Laundry.
So we have a different. Uh, yeah, I think equation altogether. Yes.
Seema: And I think at the risk of like praising digital media, et cetera, we have, of course, we have all have our faults, but I think it's a whole tradition, a different tradition of collaborative journalism that we've been able to put into measure in large part.
Yeah. About kind of, you know, treating Yeah. Sometimes happy commodity story. Like, okay, go ahead. You know, or can we share a story or whatever. So I think we have to move beyond this business of exclusive first on our channel and just us.
Manisha: Hmm. Ibrahim says, thank you for the best song recommendation in the last hafta.
Really loved it. What was it?
Abhinandan: Probably that obscene holy song which Anand's Bhojpuri song.
Manisha: Can you please do a light hearted story on how the song was conceived as it looks to be the best collab and use of comments section ever done in India? Oh no, he's
Abhinandan: talking about the one that where [01:19:00] if um, Yaduvanshi Yadav hai, toh kya, that, that one that we had done two weeks ago.
Kya
Manisha: Raadip hi radio hai, kya Arnab hi door knob hai, kya Godi media kya news laundry hi Azad media hai?
Abhinandan: Yes. Thanks, I'm proud. Yeah, that is very funny.
Manisha: Prasad says, Hi Abhinandan, in the middle of a conversation, please do not interrupt with comments of what other news. Sorry, what did you say?
Abhinandan: No,
Manisha: no, no, it's specific.
Don't interrupt comments. Do not interrupt comments with what other news channels are saying.
Abhinandan: It just
Manisha: disrupts the flow. In episode 5 to 7, you interrupted Dr. Sumit Mahaskar and went on a rant about what Times Now anchor was saying. No one's interested in what these idiots are saying. Very few watch TV news precisely for these reasons.
Love the work you guys are doing. Keep up the good work in Hafta. Love listening to Anand, Manisha, for they bring slightly different perspective.
Abhinandan: Yes, sir, Prasad. Actually,
Manisha: a lot of, just in the English, the outsized influence of television media, at least. A lot of our listeners complain when we talk about media on Hafta, [01:20:00] even though we're a media critique website.
They're like, we don't want to know. What they're saying. Just get on with what you want to say, what your guest wants to say. N certification is on. N certification
Seema: is on. A
Manisha: lot of people actually say that, that can you stop talking about what channels are doing. Hi folks, love the discussion this week on Aurangzeb, Maratha history and Mayawati's decline.
Curious as to why full hafta episodes are being released on YouTube. While I will continue to be a subscriber irrespective, I was wondering if it wouldn't de incentivize people to continue subscriptions. I know it works to get more subscribers when it is behind the paywall because that's why I became a subscriber.
Just wanted to know your thinking behind this decision.
Abhinandan: So Sani, like many things here, we are very transparent about most things. So we also often way too transparent about our strategy. What we do is like, for example, the awful and awesome was pulled behind the paywall after it was free for so long because it becomes habit forming for people.
And once it becomes habit forming, we pull it behind the paywall and then about 20 to 30 percent of those people will start paying for accessing it. That was the experience with Hafta the first [01:21:00] time and Hafta was free. People used to give money, then they're giving money just for the love of independent media and our mission statement.
But when you pull it behind the paywall, then they will pay you because it's become habit forming. So what we do is, once we do that, then it kind of plateaus. Then we put out maybe 5, 8, 10 episodes outside again. to get a larger cashment, like, you know, like some of our haftas on YouTube get 40, 50, 60, 70, 000, you know, views.
And then we'll again put it behind the paywall after a while. So it's strategic. It works on stories. It works on podcasts. So this is something we decide every quarter when we have an HOD meeting. So if everybody just for the goodness of their heart would start paying, we would put nothing behind the paywall, but that's not how it works.
And it's not the best option. It's not the best formula. But it's better than what we have. And as I've said many, very often here, those who think they have the perfect formula often screw up. We can only improve on what it was earlier. So I think this is better than it was [01:22:00] earlier. It's not perfect. Maybe the next generation of, you know, news professionals.
improve on this as well. But that's the thinking.
Manisha: Vanayu says, Hi NL team. I've been a long time supporter and admirer of your work. While NL and the News Minute cover a wide range of issues, I've noticed there isn't much coverage on, focus on business and economic coverage, whether through articles, podcasts, or interviews. It will be great to see more content on global Indian economic trends and events as part of NL's strategy.
One idea could be a long form podcast where experts break down recent economic developments, both in India and globally, and discuss what they would mean for the future. Not only would this make for an engaging discussion, but it could also become a valuable IP for NL, helping attract more subscribers and contributions.
Of course, I understand this would take time and resources, so maybe it would be done once every two to three months to keep it manageable.
Abhinandan: So Vanayu, this is something that I have been want to do for such a long time and Manisha [01:23:00] will vouch for this. Uh, I've spoken to many really good business and economic commentators and journalists.
They tend to be a little more expensive than generalists because they tend to be older. Hardcore ground reporting can be done by someone with intent, diligence, and just a passion for journalism. Uh, but for business journalism, one has to just like climate, you need area experts. Um, cause there's a lot of context, policy, there's science, uh, so they tend to be older.
They tend to be more expensive and they often tend to not want to do a full time gig with anyone. So whenever we can, we get many of them to write for us. And if, if, although I will recommend a friend of mine who had said, dude, will you do something for news laundry with us? But he's running his own organization and he has a fantastic podcast called the core report.
I was very keen to do something with Govind Raj, uh, but since we couldn't, he's doing a fantastic job. Govind like. You know, you guys said we are not competing with each other. We don't have it yet. [01:24:00] When we do, you can come back. But till then, check out Govindraj Yathiraj's, the core report. I think it's a fantastic, uh, economics, finance, uh, and business podcast.
Manisha: Suman says News Laundry only reads the letter of subscribers who pay. I understand the economics. Maybe put this episode behind the paywall now for this reason. Hmm. For democracy to work, all voices must be heard and addressed. After watching the interview of Yuval Noah Harari by Dhanya, I wonder how strong is the fourth pillar of democracy if even the media only listens and addresses who helped them.
Please excuse me, but this is not an attack. Rather, I would like to hear the opinion of everyone who's on the panel. My support in Enel's case is we are in. The Godi of the truth.
Dhanya: He wrote the same letter to me. What you did. No, no, no. What he's saying is that Abhinandan has been saying that we should read out the letters of only subscribers.
So he's saying how can media only be reading out letters of subscribers or people who support them, whatever should it be restricted that way. I get that. I mean, the longer point, [01:25:00] uh, Yuval Noah Harari is there in our email, but not in this. So,
Abhinandan: yeah, so I've explained this actually in an older hafta with the whole.
Subscriber versus ad driven versus gov state, uh, you know, sponsored media driven and everyone can give their view because you asked for the panel's view. Reading someone's emails is an incentive for them to subscribe, but that doesn't mean we are only listening to them. Also, uh, you know, Sumanth, make no mistake.
We will not decide that we are doing these kind of stories because there's a, otherwise you don't even do tech stories out of Bangalore. Cause. Tech bros will pay for your story on private equity. So that is why the entire editorial filter of senior editors that what story you do matters. And that is determined by pure news, you know, factors.
This is an incentive that we will read your mail out, but And we get ideas if we agree with, but [01:26:00] it is not that we will only, you know, do stories or listen to them. It's just an incentive. That's all it is.
Manisha: I don't know about you, but I fully read all the YouTube comments also. Because actually, some very engaged audience you find on YouTube and some very good commentary and feedback.
So I engage with, like, even non subscribers on YouTube.
Abhinandan: Because
Manisha: they have a lot of valuable things to say. And as journalists, we have to be aware of, I mean, you have to have that sounding board all the time.
Abhinandan: I will just give you an idea. We sent a report for 21 days to Manipur. I don't even know if anyone from Manipur is reading News Laundry.
That was a very expensive story. It was super expensive. Series of stories, Shiv. Not 20,
Manisha: you had 27 days. 27
Abhinandan: days you guys spent there, right Priyali? Out of 12 days, how much did you spend? No, we had, we had, I'm just saying it's, uh, you know, it's this dialogue is a hundred. It's not a referendum that we are running here.
So
Dhanya: I'm saying [01:27:00] Manipur, at least something was happening at that time. We recently sent two reporters to Andaman Nicobar Islands and they were there almost for 30 days also because you can't get the helicopter and you're stuck also, but they were there for 30 days continuously followed by the IB. I don't know who's going to read it, but we have to do what we have to do.
Peri
Manisha: Sahitya, greetings to the NLT. I must protest first that my handwritten letter sent two weeks ago was not mentioned, not read, despite adhering to the 150
Abhinandan: limit rule.
Manisha: So we read the hand, we read it. The link
Abhinandan: is in the show notes. We read your handwritten, uh, letter, uh, Peri.
Manisha: Coming to the issue that is troubling me the most is the systemic asphyxiation of data from government's end.
No census. Even Iraq had conducted its post Covid census by now after 40 years. No data on deaths due to Qom mismanagement. No data on PM fund during Covid. No data on number of migrants. No data on almost anything useful. On the other hand, the recent controversy surrounding Shashi Tharoor by the much venerated Indian Express Group is shocking itself.
Seeing that many other reputed news organizations carried the English translation [01:28:00] verbatim, even NL quotes heavily from the Express. From Express, from IE. These two nodes of information to the public makes them blind, skeptical. Democracy indeed dies in darkness. So
Abhinandan: I think Peri is talking about where, uh, Shashi's Shashi Tharoor's
Manisha: Malayalam interview was misquoted, which I think was misquoted.
I think poor. So you don't agree much with me. No,
Dhanya: no. Because we were discussing that. The, the problem was that there were a couple of his interviews. He had been given to TNI, also the same thing before. So basically he said that. I, if the party does not want me to do the stuff that I offer to do, I have other options.
He did add that my other options are academics, which people left out. But in the previous interview with New Internet Express, he did not give those options. He just stopped with, I have other options. So TNI also uploaded their interview a day after the Express one came. So everybody was. Confused. They did not realize it was an old interview.
Does he have options or not? And what options? Yeah. But in the express story, I think. The misquote was the other one where he said that the Kerala has no leaders. Express [01:29:00] admitted that. That was a misquote where they said that Kerala leaders, he basically. Said Kerala leaders in Norfolk is what Express
Seema: wrote.
Why Shashi Tharoor took so long to say this is the only point in dispute. I think Express clearly misquoted and it admitted as much. So it kind of ran a corrections column.
Manisha: The Seeker says I've been following NL for quite some time. The more I listen to NL Hafta, the more I find myself aligning to the right of center.
Although I do not agree with Mandir Masjid politics, I also don't agree with left's LGBTQ stand. I agree that we need to respect people with different preferences, but this was going to another level now, endangering the future generations. Thanks to BJP in India and Trump in US, this culture will be suppressed.
I was very pleased with the Ranveer Allahbadia controversy. The guy deserves every bit of criticism coming his way. In this day and age, when clicks are the only things that matter, it was refreshing to see Indians have some shame left. I agree that there are worse things said and done, and that they need to be equally condemned.
It also shows that The right is not biased and is willing to take down one of its own when it comes to basic moral values. I was [01:30:00] disappointed at NL team's conciliatory tone towards Ranveer. Firstly, right is not taking down one of its own because Ranveer, it's very transactional.
Abhinandan: It's
Manisha: not, they're not.
Yeah.
Abhinandan: So also on, um, there's the conciliatory tone.
Manisha: Jealousy.
Abhinandan: It's just consistency with values. Yeah. I mean, obscene. So ban it. I mean, why should we go at, in fact, that entire nuisance I did where I just ripped into Ranvir.
Yeah.
You see the YouTube comments in that I've been is picking on a kid, you're just punching down at someone who's, you know, half your age or whatever the fuck it is.
Manisha: And he's a, he's just a YouTuber, not journalist. He's a YouTuber. He's
Abhinandan: not a journalist. Why you picking on him?
Manisha: Yeah.
Abhinandan: So if we disagree with something, we'll go at him. But if we. I mean, it's values that we have to be consistent with. So I, I, in fact, I think that we were consistent with values and he's not left or right.
He's an idiot. Yeah. And if
Seema: you have to talk about great, uh, you know, the right being so kind of conscious of good language and [01:31:00] all. What was Anurag Thakur doing as a minister? Is that not abusive? Kapil Mishra, who's currently the law minister of Delhi. People call to hate them in all kinds of all manner of obscenities.
What happened in Parliament? He was elevated to, to contest against. It's the former chief minister of Delhi. So let's not kind of give this to them. This is because the whole patriarchy, it's a great attack on the family. This whole idea of
Manisha: jealousy could be jealousy as well,
Seema: which means that Ranveer Allahabadia had no business saying that, but is it criminal?
And if that's the standard, then let's start applying it across to all kinds of people. And you know, the fish, the rotting starts at the head. We're very clear about that. And in language, it's very clear what's happening in the past. Uh, 10, 12 years. Yeah. And to try and get a public approval for broadcasting, shut it down without any commentary with, and to go on that set after several days, what were they expecting?
Like sort of word clouds would hang around or, you know, you'd kind of, uh, arrest the wall. This is, this is beyond Kafka and completely
Abhinandan: [01:32:00] stupid. There's no their own. I mean, if you see, uh, Arnab's debates about, uh, Yogi. seven years ago, there's no their own. It is very, uh,
Manisha: on the
Abhinandan: LGBTQ. I mean, I kind of agree with you.
I think the, the, um, conversation had become just ridiculous. Uh, and Dhania and I may disagree on it. And I'll, that's also because of my age and I'm a guy or privileged, but I do think that. Some of the commentary that I hear, I just hold my head and I'm like, dude, you know, this is just bizarre. I, I, I definitely think it is at a zone which, uh, the, in India, it's irrelevant.
So it's not a political issue, which is why we don't talk much about it. But in the West, uh, in America, I completely understand why very reasonable people, uh, who, even personally, I know they will never make that statement public, but they said, you know, this entire super wokeness had, has gone into a zone, which is.
completely, we can't identify [01:33:00] with. And I understand that sentiment.
Seema: So where I disagree with that is it's kind of easy to say it's gone out of whack and all, but it's the smallest, most vulnerable minority, which in a way is immutable and it has no defenses and it's historically known to have been treated in a particular way in what it sees as expression and self expression, all those people who are now saying that this is too much because it's a small minority will come after every other person.
So you start with an anti trans thing because it sounds very logical to say that, please don't, you know, how trivial is it to talk about bathrooms and, you know, washrooms and there should be separate one for men and women. And why are you talking about nude beaches and the access female sports? But a lot of the criticism was based on a willful exaggeration of that.
And it's a test case. So, you know, there is disability, there is a trans, there's a sense of expression. And why I think we should support it is because it's only when everyone is free and everyone is treated freely that all of us would be free. I think that was the importance of the LGBTQ. But
Abhinandan: again, [01:34:00] see what I disagree with is when you say we should support it, what is it?
Define it to me because I support like, uh, you know, the email also said that I think everybody should. We should all support it. Define it. Because I can, I can tell you,
I
can tell you specific things about it that I think are idiotic. That doesn't mean I am bigoted towards trans. I think there are certain demands, there are certain aspects.
If you cannot have a conversation about something, and this I can tell you as being an activist, if you are unable to converse about something without calling someone a bigot, You have lost all hope of ever making a change and I think this conversation in the West has come to realize that you cannot Define everybody who doesn't agree with everything you're saying as someone who's bigoted and neither has, uh, you know, caste done that, neither has race done that.
That was the difference between why Martin Luther King could make a difference and Malcolm X could not. It was not just because Malcolm X died young. So did Martin Luther King. But there's a very real [01:35:00] reason that this man said, we will engage, we will talk, but we will fight for our rights. And one man said, fuck you.
I will not talk to you. If you don't agree with me, you're all, you know, traitors to the cause. I don't think so. Unless you can define it, then I can tell you whether I agree with that or not. You cannot just call everything small, small
Seema: definition it. There are many. It's involved in this particular case is the right of somebody who's a transgender or who is a kinder or whoever to enter the us.
There's a ban now, so I think we can begin describing everyone. That's no brainer. No, no, no. That's not a no brainer. 'cause it starts, it starts like that. It starts with the starts. I can
Abhinandan: support that, but does that mean I have to support. But because you see things
Seema: take, take time in a discourse to settle, maybe if it would have been allowed to kind of just happen, it finds its place, its newness, its ability to shock its ability to make it.
So, you know, people are so angry, led to a phase where people felt that, look, are we, is that disproportionate time going to it? If it was allowed to settle, maybe we'll just found this place like the race conversation, the cost conversation, which has spent, you know, it's had much more of a [01:36:00] time. This is exactly what was said when women wanted equal rights.
Why do you want to ride a bicycle is what French women women We're told, why do you want to vote girl? But again, all starts like that. I disagree. Starts like that.
Dhanya: No,
Seema: no, no. See, like the K doesn't like that again, always starts like that. Just look at your history books, whether there's a conversation, you have to pick the class people out their comfort
Dhanya: zone to start conversations.
I understand the MA kif controversy. Sorry, just I don't wanna respond to, sorry. What're saying controversy
Abhinandan: again? Sima, what you're saying is something that someone like the email writer make can agree with. But that is not what I'm talking about. You cannot say that, Oh, it always starts with writing, like, sorry, that's not the same thing as someone who's saying that I want to compete in a women's team and I can have a conversation saying that, you know, I don't think that's entirely fair and saying it is the same thing as one right back.
It's not the same thing. The thing is, if everybody, if everything is racism, then nothing is racism. If everything is bigotry, then nothing is bigotry. The moment. [01:37:00] And we talk about nuance all the time when it comes to right, there can be no nuance in this conversation.
Dhanya: No, they can be. I think you are talking about cancel culture, right?
You're basically saying that everybody's canceled the moment they question. What we're saying is not that. What we're saying is that some of the conversations are problematic and they have to be questioned that you cannot say that, Oh, for example, if some, uh, in the, in America, we are seeing a movement where trans people are being sidelined completely and we cannot, yeah.
And we cannot add to the conversation by saying that, Oh, you can have some nuance here, some nuance there. No, that conversation has to be shut down with support, right?
Abhinandan: Sure. But that conversation, not every conversation, what I'm saying, how does it
Dhanya: start? It starts by injecting a doubt in your mind that, okay, maybe they're asking too much.
Okay. Maybe the demands are too much that you're injecting
Abhinandan: doubt into the minds of people through conversations. But if you are unable to have a conversation, You can't transform anyone. What I'm saying is, I agree with you. But always talk to
Seema: JK Rowling. She's such a powerful person. Harry Potter. I love her on for years.
She's been going on and on. But
Abhinandan: that JK Rowling controversy was stupid. Again,
it's JK Rowling. Forget JK [01:38:00] Rowling. I'm talking about us. I'm talking about us and this email. But we're just having a conversation. I agree.
Which is fine. But what I'm saying is, that is not true in a lot of conversations. There is an inability to have a conversation.
And all of us are unaffected parties. Let's be clear. We are unaffected parties. So, our conversation can be a lot more dispassionate, which is why I took the example of Malcolm X and, uh, Martin Luther King because they were affected parties. When they're affected parties involved in the conversations, I find it is very difficult to have a sensible conversation,
Seema: but I'm sorry to say this, I
Manisha: think the example is actually a good one to kind of dissect what we're saying here.
She was completely targeted in my opinion for how she looked and especially I think as a brown woman and put to the standards of how a female athlete and there was no. Proof of any of the testing, nothing had happened and people went and that was just, that was assholery of the first order. But in that conversation, you also had people who were just negating the idea of testosterone testing.
That is, [01:39:00] that is unscientific. It exists, there are different levels and you have
Dhanya: to account for the fact that there are different levels. So that is something that, for example, the Olympics committee has to look at at some point in time and address, right? It can't be done with everyone just having their opinion about it.
And you can't say it doesn't exist. You can't say, I
Manisha: don't believe in it. So it doesn't exist. There is science to it. So that is something they have to decide. So my point is that I think in that urge to support, let's not also negate the fact that. But
Seema: here I think we must also realize where the balance of power is here.
So am I going to go after one transgender who's affected? In that I do want to get into like Martin Luther King and that's like another thing for me, another trajectory. But if there's an affected party, I will give a little more weight to them if there's a disabled person. So that's all. And I think that, and what I'm saying is that that conversation will also find what we like to call a balance or nuance.
It may be in five years, that kind of, it always starts where it's kind of, Oh, immense shock value.
Dhanya: And then it kind of settles. No. And all these things like the shock values [01:40:00] exaggerated also, for example, there must be one case, for example, where a child has been given the freedom for a gender change surgery or whatever.
It's exaggerated. So there is a, there is doubt injected when, you know, when it comes to real matters, people will be like, Oh no, everything is problematic around us. So we cannot support. I
Manisha: think India is not an issue. It's like a deterrent factor. In the U S it is. It's, it is, it is. I'm not saying
Dhanya: it is not, but the paranoia also is, is, I think it is also artificial in a way.
No,
Seema: also, you know where we say, India, we should pay attention to the way this conversation goes, because the way it is shut down is used in India to shut down other conversations they don't like. That's why it's important. to watch how America, how that conversation progresses, or if it's gone to now, meaning passport tuck, then we should be worried and we should study how that conversation went, what it was.
So you're right that in India, maybe that whole transgender thing that did not come is, is, uh, is not directly affecting us, but it affects us because we do Xerox versions of that. We do our own version, Indian versioning of how that is shut [01:41:00] down. And then slowly start coming.
Abhinandan: Hmm.
Manisha: Amrita says, replying to Nitin's disparaging statements on EU in the EU, I feel a lot of the useless pompous EU view in India comes from perceptions of European colonizers in the US.
But a lot of post for EU positioning was not a matter of choice. Germany was built on initial support of the US and has military bases here. If you travel around here, especially Central and Eastern Europe, this continent has suffered a lot and collapse of Soviet Union led to level of pain that in India we haven't experienced in recent times.
Please don't compare. He went through partition, boss. Okay. The values and policies are lessons from its past position on Kashmir, for example, is led by contrasting ideals and self determination for you and unit for India. The problem in the Indian approach to Europe is there's little care for the struggles of this continent and a projection of historic issues with Britain and us on it.
What did he say? What disparaging things? He said
Abhinandan: that, you know, useless pompous you, there [01:42:00] is. Especially among, uh, you know, policy, think tank, uh, community, I've heard this often from many saying that, you know, you whining about it is forget it. And to an extent I get where it's coming from, but also the historical context of Europe only agreed to all these things because America said we'll take like Japan doesn't have a nuclear arsenal.
Technologically, they are way ahead of the rest of the world. They don't have one now because you have said that we will take care of you. So today, if you say that suddenly, so all that, like Ukraine, you know, hindsight is trying to, Ukraine would not have given up its nuclear arsenal had they known that Trump is going to come and say, forget it, we won't take care of you.
Had Ukraine been a nuclear armed power, today things would have been very different. And they were convinced to give up their nuclear arsenal because when the Soviet Union collapsed, large chunk of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal was in Ukraine. They said, okay, give it to Russia. Because at the same time, it's also true that, you know, [01:43:00] the march of NATO was In fact, many countries within the EU were not so keen that America insists that Ukraine join EU because it would threaten Russia.
Anyway, it's more complicated, but yeah, I get where this is coming from. EU is given a disrespectful, you know, kind of address by many people who talk about this issue. The only
Seema: thing you should be celebrated for, maybe a few other things also, is that they did bear the brunt of the world wars, the kind of lives they lost, if you count Soviet lives, and Europe, there's a bit destruction, that kind of, I think that's what they're referring to, that Indians go on about fighting wars and jumping.
being here and there because when fathers are burying their sons, that's what wars are about and at scale. So I think you saw that. But the other thing they need to be complimented for is their understanding of the digital medium AI and their ability to regulate it. And I think all this muskery and all this Bezos city and this Zuckerberg stems from wanting to, so they may pretend they're talking about far right and all the, of course they [01:44:00] are far right.
They want these governments to go. The entire EU architecture, how to regulate AI without stifling innovation. They have got the, you know, they've got the Goldilocks number on that.
Abhinandan: Okay. So let's come to the recommendations of the week before we wind up Hafta. Let's start with Dhania. You have any recommendations that could enrich the lives of our listeners?
Dhanya: I don't know what I'm going to do the same recommendation on South Central and Hafta. Uh, so I was reading this book by Poonam Agarwal. It's called India Inc.
Abhinandan: It's
Dhanya: quite interesting. So she's been following elections. So for quite a few years, she's the first one who brought out that electoral bonds are actually traceable while the government is claiming it is not.
So it's an investigative piece on how strategies work and how elections work. Uh, quite, quite nice. I mean, I'm not finished it, but yeah,
Abhinandan: right.
Seema: So, uh, I forgot we had to do recommendations, but I can think of a book I just finished reading, which is called Careless People. It's by a former New Zealand diplomat who worked closely with Facebook.
So it's like a whistleblower [01:45:00] account. It's a brilliant book. And I did it in like one sitting. Careless People. It's a brilliant book and it goes down brilliantly and very, very well written. There's something we could all learn about how to write and how to whistleblower if you want to at some point, but just how to describe things in a most accessible way.
And I'd recommend a film called In Galiyon Se. At a time of complete kind of death of, um, Bombay cinema, there's nothing new coming out. There's a very good film by Avinash Das, which actually, and it's, it reminded me of Saeed Mirza's Nukkad. It's, it's really an awesome film. It restores kind of the joy of a Hindi film song.
The actor and actress are like dancing, jumping, and it's beautiful. It's about two gullies, Hanuman Gully and Rehman Gully. And the conversations that happen at that corner, and it's got sharp Muslim characters too. It's not just Mr. Goody Goody or the terrorist. It's kind of really done that well. And, uh, yeah, and I recommend everybody watches the Wire Wrap, which is like this weekly show we do at The Wire, which does just, it's a sober discussion or whatever's happened in that week.
And this week's you'd find very instructive. It's got [01:46:00] like Kunal Purohit and Ajoy Ashirwad, our political editor, and Shravasthi Dasgupta It's quite cool. Watch it if you can.
Abhinandan: Right.
Manisha: So since Aurangzeb is the flavor of the week, expresses Sunday article when Shivaji's grandson visited Aurangzeb's tomb is a very good piece.
We should read it. We should know more about our history from real sources. I quite enjoyed reading Akar Patel's piece on the wire on why 11 years is enough for,
Abhinandan: for
Manisha: any leader who wants to do anything in the world. 11 years is enough. He takes the example of Napoleon. He talks about Erdogan. He takes talks about Mao, Nehru and where Modi fits in.
He's got his 11 years. What has he done? What has he done?
Abhinandan: And
Manisha: since everyone is watching Adolescence on Netflix, I highly recommend reading Lakshmi Priya's piece on Manosphere in India, how the Manosphere is lurking and attracting young Indian boys and men. Uh, it's on the News Minute. We've also published it.
It's a very good long form piece on the, gives you the India context.
Dhanya: We've just taken it out of the [01:47:00] paywall so everybody can read it. Yeah. But we are going to have the second part of it, which will be behind the paywall, which looks at a complication in this, which is religion and manosphere, religion and, uh, in cells.
Abhinandan: Uh,
Dhanya: because Andrew Tate converted, there are lots of religions, converted to
Abhinandan: what?
Dhanya: To Islam, right? So there are lots of religious, yeah, there are lots of religious undertones and overtones to this.
Abhinandan: Oh, I see. Okay.
Dhanya: looking forward to that. So definitely read this piece.
Abhinandan: So I have three recommendations. One is because we were talking about, um, you know, this whole EU America's role.
I thought a pretty good dispassionate conversation on this is one of my favorite podcasts, which is radio open source with Christopher Lydon. Uh, he has spoken to Stephen Walt, uh, who talks about what the U. S. 's role was, how U. S. is responsible for this war, not Europe. And he gives the historical perspective, and I thought it was extremely Refreshing because it [01:48:00] is a completely cause either people are living in Russia or people are blaming Ukraine and Biden is a good guy.
Trump is a bad guy. This gives a more holistic picture, not a leader specific, but a nation or a continent's politics. The second is I liked this piece in today's Times of India. All history is violent. Why pick only Aurangzeb by Charmi Harikrishnan in the Times of India. And the third thing, because when I went to Times of India.
Uh, website, uh, this article caught my, you know, fancy and I had to read it was two tips for quick marriage. So, uh, I told my mother when I'm reading it, so it has the following things, sleep in Southwest Northwest bedroom.
I only
have one bedroom. So, I will have to turn my kitchen into a bedroom or something, but, uh, the person who's written this is TY Astrology, so Times of India, I'll try to figure that out.
So, I guess only people who have more than one bedroom can hope [01:49:00] for this. Keep a pair of lovebirds or swans in your bedroom.
Manisha: Swans? How do you keep swans in your bedroom?
Abhinandan: So, also, tell me how to deal with the swan shit. I'm following this.
Manisha: More, I want to know more. Then,
Abhinandan: use light and soothing colors in the bedroom.
So, I mean, I do have light in the bedroom, but Soothing colors. Soothing colors. Baby pink. Okay. Pink, peach, yellow, light green. Might bring love and positive. Remove broken or unused items. To hearts count.
Eh, shavash!
Cause, remove broken Clutter block Broken mirrors is
Manisha: inauspicious. Broken mirrors, old photographs
Abhinandan: I have full of old photographs.
But, I mean, I keep You'd remove yourself then. Yeah, I know. Place a rose quartz crystal in the bedroom. So I've googled what is a rose quartz crystal. Light a ghee lamp in the north west corner daily. All is to get married. So much
Dhanya: is to get married. What about the
Abhinandan: person you're going to get married [01:50:00] to? So keep fresh flowers at home.
Dhanya: They'll just waft in because of all the smell.
Abhinandan: And avoid dried or dead flowers. They become negativity and delays. I love
Manisha: dried flowers, yeah. Is
Abhinandan: it done? You're already married. Hello, is
Dhanya: this done?
Abhinandan: Huh? Is it done? What?
Dhanya: This is not going to happen. Is the list over?
Abhinandan: No.
Dhanya: Oh God.
Abhinandan: Strengthen Venus and Moon energy in your home.
So I'll figure out how to strengthen Venus. You wear light colored clothes such as pink, white or pastel. White you're always wearing. I've been wearing white for 22 years and I haven't fucking got married. So it doesn't work, but, but thank you. And the good thing is that.
Manisha: Keep swans in your room,
Abhinandan: swans in your room,
Manisha: these, these,
Abhinandan: these kind of practical, very serious about this
Seema: because it's got, I can see over, see, I've been on this as a crazy ads on it, which is kind of printable boobs of a woman
Abhinandan: popping out and stuff.
This is what, see, this is what, this is what ad driven stuff does. You see. If we depend on ads right under an article about [01:51:00] judge raided 40 crores found while you are figuring that out also see these boobs and also see these are the 12 things you need to do if you want to get married and it worked. So you see either we go down that way or you subscribe and pay to keep news free.
So yeah, I recommend all you thullas
Manisha: like me. Single
Abhinandan: people are called thullas. It's not a cop thing. It later became a cop thing, but back in college, thulla meant a guy who is single.
Manisha: Very old, yeah. So,
Abhinandan: uh, you can read this article. Link is in the show notes below. Tell me how many of you followed this. and tell you where you bought your swans.
We can all buy together and get a good deal.
On that note, thank you, Dhania. Thank you. Thank you, Manisha. Thank you. Thank you, Seema. Thank you very much. Do contribute to The Wire as well. They do some excellent work and pay to keep you free because when the public pays, the public is served. Otherwise, you'll also have to go to Doordarshan and say, you know, give us a contract with
Manisha: Sudhir.
Abhinandan: to our sound recordist, Anil. Thank you to our wonderful producer, [01:52:00] Priyali and her junior producer, Ashish, who was lurking around somewhere but is not here. around anymore. We will leave you with this song which is inspired by what Modi ji said about what journalists should be.
Manisha: Not Maki.
Abhinandan: Yeah. Have a fantastic week.
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