NL Hafta

Besides Manisha Pande and host Abhinandan Sekhri, this episode of Hafta includes Jaskirat Singh Bawa, Senior Editor at The Quint and Vivek Kaul, author and a columnist for Newslaundry. The episode begins with Manisha briefing the panel with the week’s headlines, including Faye D’Souza stepping down as Mirror Now’s executive editor, recent arrests of journalists, and Tabrez Ansari’s case, amongst others. Abhinandan talks about Modi’s speech on the prevention of livestock diseases in Mathura and the follow up it received on primetime debates. “ I am dumbstruck at how far we have come,” says Abhinandan wondering if the speech was a ‘dog whistle’ by Modi. Vivek Kaul is of the view that these are regular deviations. He says, “They have all these distractions planted regularly at different points of time to deviate attention from what should essentially be the issue we should be talking about.” Manisha too thinks these prime-time debates are completely ‘made-up’. The discussion moves to Piyush Goyal’s statements on Maths, Einstein, and Gravity. Manisha says these incidents “demonstrate how these guys are so not used to being questioned.” The panel also talks about the series of arrests of journalists. On being asked if he worries about the safety of his journalists now, Jaskirat says, “Not just now; some sort of a layer or feeling of insecurity has been there.” The podcast includes conversations on a series of other issues including the rise in traffic fines, news coverage of Chandrayaan 2, Pallav Baghla and Ram Jethmalani’s death. For more, listen up to the whole podcast!