NL Hafta

In this episode of NL Hafta, host Abhinandan Sekhri is joined by the in-house panel of Manisha Pande, Madhu Trehan and Raman Kirpal, and Scroll staff writer Shoaib Daniyal. The conversation covers Harvest TV, the new 13-point roster for reservation of teaching posts, the National Sample Survey Office jobs report, George Fernandes’s legacy, the latest Cobrapost investigation, and more. Shoaib explains the 13 point roster order given by the Supreme Court. He says reservation on the recruitment of faculty will now be calculated by the department, not by the university as a whole. He says: “Because reservation numbers are 15 per cent, 7.5 per cent—it actually ends reservation in many ways if your department is very small.” Abhinandan adds: “Seven per cent of seven teachers is 0 ... So you round off most of the reservations to 0 while you have kept reservations as a statement of mathematical possibility.” Manisha says there will be protests over this but she doubts how much coverage it will get. Raman draws the discussion to the latest Cobrapost story on the DHFL financial scam. He says: “I don’t see any scam in it! This is just a narrative that the money moved from this place to another. There could be a story ... But what I am saying is that the half baked story with which you broke down 8 per cent of their share market—who gained from it? That itself is a story.” Abhinandan disagrees that it's "half-baked", saying, "There is a law. If you have common directors, one company cannot lend money to the other.” Raman asserts: “In that case, it is a violation, not a scam” —which is what Cobrapost called it. Madhu steps in to discuss Harvest TV. She says, “I did like Barkha’s interview with Jaya. That she really excels at because she has the capacity to do the background research, everything is always at her fingertips. She never interviews with a list of questions, like most of us do.” She adds, "Unfortunately, I think the roach they have taken to launch this channel is problematic”, alluding to Harvest TV running the channel on a religious broadcasting license. The panel goes on to discuss the Padma Shri and other national excellence awards, Rahul Gandhi’s minimum income promise, and a lot more. Listen up!