Anonymous
In last week’s Hafta, Chetan Bhagat was spot on when he described how minuscule the demands of a typical Indian are and how not only have they adopted a practice of just being submissive to what's happening in terms of poor services, but religion has been at the core of everything.
There is, however, a problem here because what we forget so easily is that the 2014 elections were not won on religion, they were won on corruption, and they were won on an idea of development.
I still remember all these “smart cities” that were supposed to be created, pta nahin kahan gayi wo sab mandir masjid mein.
India wasn’t as simplistic and regressive only a decade back and “growth” was one of the buzzwords…there’s maybe a bigger discussion needed on what we were as a society and why there's been a shift.
Just curious, what do you guys think about this change?
Vatsal
Hi NL team, whenever any party other than BJP announces a whole narrative begins, across Meta to LinkedIn, that how tax payer’s money is being given away in populist schemes to win elections.
Let’s take Delhi’s context – it is a quasi-state and amongst the highest per capita income in India with a solid economy despite limited state taxation powers. My point is that when all is said and done, why should we not have subsidised electricity and water supply or free transport for women when anyway we are paying Europe-like taxes here? It’s not that the states who don’t have these schemes have fully resolved their government hospitals, schools, etc. issues, so why not have direct benefit transfer to women? After all, that would either stimulate the savings rate of families or boost purchasing power of women, who we know from the economic survey data get lower access to family resources. What are your thoughts?
Soma Sekhar
Great fan of the show and usual, usual praises. NL Hafta has become more than a podcast, it has become a companion. Feels weird now to drive without NL Hafta playing. I recommend the series Brinda which tried to show the trauma faced by families who lost their family members in religion related atrocities.
Sanskriti
Hello NL team, huge fan here! Writing about Chetan Bhagat’s extremely delusional take about how he thinks there is no racism in Dubai. Despite Abhinandan gently trying to educate him, Chetan did not relent! If he is so divorced from the reality of the place he is living in, how could one take seriously his views about the people of Maharashtra? Would love to hear your opinion on this.
I also think Abhinandan is a very sweet friend. I will try to emulate his patience when my own friends behave so ignorantly. Keep up the amazing work!
Rakshita
Abhinandan, in a previous email, I had asked to remove you from the program for not maintaining seriousness during the show. Thanks for taking the feedback. Your show does seem more focused. Now to Shehla Rashid – how did you do it? Hats off to your patience and focus in the face of her fakery. So nicely, politely and subtly she was gas-lighting you. She’ll go far as a politician. I couldn’t finish the interview. Tried on 1.75x speed. Even then, stopped half an hour before the end.
PCRC
Is it just me, or does Jagdeep Dhankar look like Peter Pettigrew from Harry Potter – only prettier, with less charm, and more enthusiasm for bootlicking the Supreme Leader?
Shashank
Jayashree, are you able to talk about the anti-Hindi protests of the 1960s in TN, the next time a non-Tamilian asks about the strong anti-Hindi sentiment in TN?
Uddalak Aruni
The Shehla Rashid interview was fun; it’s refreshing to hear diverse perspectives. One thing that irked me was your illogical dismissal of the phenomenon of human capital migration during Partition. The reason India’s Muslim society is poorer is because a large section of its highly educated and skilled Muslim population left. Your retort that if this were true, Pakistan would have thrived, is flawed. Pakistan also lost a significant portion of its human capital with the departure of the Hindu population, which was India’s gain. Therefore, after Partition in India, the number of talented Hindus increased and talented Muslims decreased. Societies and countries are different. For example, in 1972 Idi Amin of Uganda expelled its Indian population and confiscated their property, but this only made Uganda poorer. Meanwhile, the Hindu community that left and settled elsewhere is as wealthy, if not wealthier, than they were in Uganda.
Ishita
Dear NL team,
I know that it is not precedented that a subscriber gives a recommendation. But here I am doing that. Watched this interview of Nitin Gadkari conducted by Samdish Bhatia, it was interesting to hear Gadkari’s opinions. It was definitely much better than Nirmala tai’s interview saying ‘What is patriarchy?’. Sharing the link here:
https://youtu.be/dC_gV1yB1AA?si=ze9IV5gGvFfv7u_K
Please do watch!
Sumanth
Question for Meghnad, the Parliament is an amazing place to make policies and decisions for the long term. However, it runs inefficiently (not only in our country), with very few functioning hours and even those are getting adjourned or have absolutely irrelevant topics with every passing session, and the amount of money spent is massive! (Chai pani se lekar woh naukar joh bana raha hai.) How plausible is it for us as citizens to reduce the budget by half or divert it for something more tangible? What are your thoughts on this? Love the MPGA initiative btw!
I have also noticed a small issue with the payment options and would like to bring it to your notice.
Vivek
Hello NL team, Love your work. On the question of unparliamentary feedback for guests on the podcast, I think you can give a fair warning to the guests that as this is a subscriber-funded platform and as an organisation you take subscriber feedback seriously – there is a possibility of negative feedback or criticism of their views.
Sajeev Khan
Hi Newslaundry team,
Some or most of your paywall stories/interviews deserve to be known by most Indians.
I think subscribers of NL are well-wishers of better journalism and therefore I think they will appreciate that these paywall stories should be available to the general public.
If need be, you could do a poll among the subscribers, whether a paywall story can be made available to the public or not.
Newslaundry should be part of mainstream journalism and not just consumed by a few. This could help our society.
Kindly consider the above suggestion.
Regards,
Sajeev from a tiny part of Kerala
Dheeraj DK
Hello,
Your form is broken. It counts 165 or so words as the 200 word limit is reached. Online tool was counting 165 or so when your form was saying the limit reached.
Regarding NL Sena funds for covering elections. Yes, elections are important, in fact, most important events but just getting bites from random people is not enough. And honestly it is quite not possible to capture what election issues are of a state by dropping into a state weeks before polls. One good way to reduce spending but still getting great coverage would be to identify local outlets that work on ground and report all through five-years from there, and collaborate with them, have your reporters tag along with them. You did this in the Karnataka polls with TNM. You could do more. Tag along with smaller organisations on their election tours, talk to them, in the process also introduce them to a wider audience. This way, we will also learn about the wider media scene across India.
Thanks.
Anonymous
Just completed both parts of Let’s Talk About: Punjab.
It reminded me of something my schoolteacher used to tell me after going through what I had written in my exam. “You have great knowledge and depth, but itni poor presentation ke saath karega, to koi kyun read karega?”
Firstly, great work from Abhinandan because the depth, the level of work, and the hours that have gone into the project is evident. But I belong to the demographic that REALLY wanted to know about the subject. For any casual listener, it’s not palatable. The pacing is very fast, plus a monologue narration is maybe not the most engaging.
Also why limit this depth of research to just audio behind a paywall?
Make it a video…put 20 mins of it public? Uske baad ask the people to subscribe and watch the rest?
You’re underselling the quality of work you guys are doing and as a fellow creator/marketer, I really hope you don't waste your efforts
You’ve built a diamond, why not present it as one?
Cheers!
Ravi
Hi team,
On the Modi-Kapoor discussion, I heard about how clever and smart Modi is. Just wanted to say it’s nothing but the halat of media today. If media starts talking about the real stuff he will be naked at the end of the first week itself. He is the biggest farce ever can happen to any society/country. It’s the shameless media that made him the brand he is today.
The sad part is that he is a reflection of our society, and there’s no going back from here. The damage is irreparable.
He is not smart, clever or a strategist. He is the media made and sad reality of our reality. People who defend him should always remember that BJP came into existence only after the Babri demolition and that itself talks about the party and the majority who support them.
While watching Freedom at Midnight I felt that the day is not far away when pre-Partition like the situation will be in front of us.
Modi is a farce is what I wanted to say. A hatemonger. Nothing else. Thank you.
Reena
1) Kudos to NL-TNM team for the collab. While I don’t really want to compare NL Hafta and South Central, I find South Central a bit more structured. It could be because I’m from the south and I don't get the Hindi chatter in the middle.
2) I enjoy consuming content from the NL app, I travel mostly it makes my journey bearable, please ensure timely uploads – for example, South Central podcast was out on YouTube before I could see it in the NL app (didn't see it so far, post 24 hrs).
3) I didn’t find Chetan Bhagat quite convincing, we have a higher bar in terms of a qualitative panel, maybe he might have been a good panel for a different discussion. 4.Finally Can we see some crossovers?
4) Manisha/Raman Sir in South Central, probably Pooja/Dhanya in Hafta would be interesting combos to see.
5) While I have pondered a lot on constructive criticism, you guys are doing a fab job, recently celebrated my Bday, got a Collage Book as gift which captured pretty much me, and guess what I found NL there.
Seema
The observation that the supposed “first” family of Hindi cinema could barely string together a complete sentence in Hindi speaks to what mainstream Bollywood is. It is a clique of urban English speakers pretending to speak Hindi (with a few notable exceptions). Besides the poorly delivered dialog in English-accented Hindi, there is barely any Hindi in the movie. The credits are in English. All captions are in English. And even when there are credits in Hindi, they are just transliterations of the title in English (डायरेक्टर instead of निर्देशक/निर्देशिका ).
@Abhinandan: Mark Blythe is Scottish and a real treat to listen to. I think his episode count on Radio OS is now in double digits. I also recommend the episode from November 15 titled “Why are poor Americans voting for the Party of the Rich” from the podcast Ones And Tooze. If you like Mark Blythe, you will enjoy Adam Tooze for his very dry humor and crisp delivery.
Keep up the good work guys!
Comd. Shepard
The infamous Comd. Shepard is back! The breaker of 150 word limit!!
Your recent Punjab explainer was really good. I can't really critique the content as I don't have in-depth knowledge about the topic unlike the post-WW1 Zionist project. It really restores my faith in Indians to overcome divide but my fear is that it will get much worse before it gets better. I believe this Whatsapp Uncle Generation and their byproducts are cooked and will end us in another massacre. My dad was literally a teen when it happened and tells us the stories of that time. IDK how these Boomers want to experience another country-wide hysteria like in the past.
We really need to go the Germany route and teach our children the horrors of our mistakes of the past and of the shit that is going on when BJP is over with. And reverse everything like the 42nd Amendment and fill up these holes in our constitution & bureaucracy. History is like a cycle and time is the great equaliser, hopefully this fact remains true this time around too.
NGL Mr Sekhri is a really good interviewer for the all nonsense interviewee and TNM’s Mr Mondal is really good interviewer for an all-sense interviewee. Mr Sekhri was literally my inner monologue while listening to that interview!!! Sisterm please answer his questionnnnnnnnnnssss for fuck sakes!!!
My dad, who was a signalman himself, really liked Mr Devasahayam's interview. And yes, my father mooches off my NL subscription even though People of India pays him to lay on his bed post retirement. T^T
I have a request – can you have a full length discussion on grassroots politics and the work that goes into it in India and its evolution or lack of it. Meghnad is doing that, so can you invite him too for it.
Before anyone in the podcast asks again for the 30th time (I have written many emails), it’s Commander Shepard from the Mass Effect series.
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