Reporters Without Orders

This week, host Ayush Tiwari is joined by Newslaundry’s Basant Kumar and Shivangi Saxena. The discussion begins with Shivangi and Nidhi’s reportage on the violence at Lakhimpur Kheri. Shivangi says communal tension was rare here before but the violence has changed that. “All the communities are silent but there is a constant tension and fear among them,” she says. “It’s basically a social boycott among the groups.” She also says there are a lot of unanswered questions on the role of Ashish...

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by journalist Tabeenah Anjum and Newslaundry’s Diksha Munjal. Diksha talks about her report on how the media gave the recent Mumbai “drug bust”, which involved Aryan Khan, way more coverage than the October 3 violence in Lakhimpur Kheri. “Clearly it was very sensational for the mainstream media to cover the drug bust as they deployed all their resources to that story, instead of focusing on Lakhimpur,” she says. She also points out how sections of...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry’s Nidhi Suresh and independent journalist Anand Dutt. Anand starts with his BBC Hindi report on a ration crisis in Jharkhand, where people have to travel 30 km to reach ration distribution centres. “Mobile networks play an important role in this distribution,” he says, “as sometimes, the dealer can’t give rations because the machine doesn’t administer a recipient’s fingerprint because of bad network. And then, they are asked to come...

This week, host Nidhi Suresh is joined by Arun Singh of NDTV and Akanksha Kumar of Newslaundry. The panel talks about their experience reporting on the Hathras case, where a 19-year-old Dalit woman was gangraped last September in Uttar Pradesh’s Hathras. She died soon after and her body was forcibly cremated by the Uttar Pradesh police. Four Thakur men have been arrested so far, and the trial is ongoing. Arun recalls being at the crime scene and wonders how the case received widespread...

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Kashif Kakvi of NewsClick and Ashwine Singh of Newslaundry. The conversation begins with Kashif's story about how the BJP is using the Taliban’s victory in Afghanistan as a tool to counter the anti-incumbency against its government in Madhya Pradesh. To this end, Kashif notes, the Hindu supremacist party organised a seminar for their IT Cell workers in Bhopal on September 9 titled, “The political rise of radical Islam and challenges to India’s...

This week, host Ayush Tiwari is joined by Newslaundry’s Basant Kumar and Avdhesh Kumar. Basant talks about his report from Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar, where thousands of farmers organised a Kisan Mahapanchayat on September 5 to protest against the Narendra Modi government’s new farm laws. He recalls seeing a lot of the people climbing into trees to listen to their leaders and covering their heads with green leaves to beat the severe heat. Avdhesh talks about the alleged assault on a...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by freelance journalist Mandeep Punia and BBC Hindi journalist Rajnish Kumar. The conversation begins with Rajnish’s report on widespread corruption in the Modi government’s Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Gramin) scheme. Rajnish explains that there was a “deep nexus” between public representatives, touts, and the government. Mandeep then talks about his report in Gaon Savera on a farmer, Sushil Kajal, who was injured during a police lathicharge in Karnal...

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Prateek Goyal and Basant Kumar of Newslaundry. The conversation begins with Prateek’s report where he talks about the Hindu mob assault on a Muslim bangle seller in Indore, narrating the sequence of events that led to the attack and how the police ended up booking the poor victim for allegedly molesting a young girl. Basant discusses his report on Uttar Pradesh minister Shriram Chauhan’s comment about restricting the construction of new mandis and...

This week, host Nidhi Suresh is joined by Newslaundry’s Supriti David and independent journalist Samrat X. Samrat discusses his piece analysing the recent violence in Shillong, Meghalaya. He details how the police’s killing, allegedly in a fake encounter, of a surrendered militant leader sparked widespread protests that culminated in violence on the streets. Samrat also analyses the trajectory of insurgency in the state and how a militant group that had not been heard of in Shillong for...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Shivangi Saxena and Ashwine Kumar Singh of Newslaundry. Shivangi talks about her report on an August 8 gathering at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar where the participants called for the wanton killing of Muslims in India. She recalls speaking with Uttam Upadhyay, one of those shouting for murder. “The Muslim community is a danger to the Hindu dharma,” Shivangi says Uttam told her. “For Hinduism to continue Islam needs to be eradicated. And in order to...

This week, host Ayush Tiwari is joined by Newslaundry’s Nidhi Suresh and Akanksha Kumar. Nidhi discusses her report on the alleged rape and murder of a Dalit child in Delhi Cantt area, reconstructing the timeline and narrating what the victim’s mother told her. Nidhi says the media mustn’t overlook the fact that this is also a case of caste violence. Akanksha discusses her report on the alleged “mass conversion racket” that the Uttar Pradesh police claim to have busted early this year. She...

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by the Wire reporter Dheeraj Mishra and Newslaundry’s Ayush Tiwari. Dheeraj talks about his report on the Ken-Betwa link project in Bundelkhand. The project aims to solve the region’s prolonged issue of water scarcity. Dheeraj explains that the problem lies with the government’s claim that the Ken river has surplus water at all – a claim that “isn’t backed up by any independent researcher or independent institute”. He also tells the panel that the...

This week, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Aishwarya Iyer, a reporter with the Quint, and Monika Mondal, an independent journalist. They talk about Aishwarya’s documentary Silencing Rape, which tracks the lives of four sexual assault survivors for over a year in Uttar Pradesh’s impoverished Bundelkhand region. Reflecting on what she gathered from this reporting experience, she says, “As a society we have a long way to go. I honestly don’t have much hope.” Uttar Pradesh is also facing a...

This week, host Nidhi Suresh is joined by Ayush Tiwari and Sidharth Singh of Newslaundry. In February 2021, the I&B ministry’s Directorate of Advertising and Visual Publicity presented, in the parliament, data on the Narendra Modi government’s ad spending. It shows that Republic TV and Times Now, the most watched English news TV channels in the country, got fewer ads than NewsX, India Today, and BTVI. This data doesn’t match the numbers the government had previously released under the Right...

In this episode, host Ayush Tiwari is joined by Newslaundry reporters Nidhi Suresh and Tanishka Sodhi. Nidhi discusses her report on Ayesha Alvi, who was compelled to move court after getting threats for converting to Islam. In this context, Nidhi talks about Deep Shrivastava, a reporter at News 18 who was allegedly mentioned by Alvi in her petition and who filed a criminal defamation case against Nidhi after her report was published. Tanishka talks about her report on a protest outside St...

This week, Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry reporter Akanksha Kumar and freelance journalist Anand Dutt. Anand discusses his report on the alleged killing by the security forces of an Adivasi youth in Jharkhand and details the plight of the state’s Adivasi communities. On the media coverage of the killing, he explains why such atrocities rarely get wide coverage. Akanksha talks about her reports on the Uttar Pradesh police arresting five Muslim men and accusing them of running a...

In this episode, hosted by Nidhi Suresh, Newslaundry reporters Ayush Tiwari and Basant Kumar discuss their investigation into the shady land deals of the Ram temple trust in Ayodhya. Talking about the involvement of Harish Pathak, an absconding fraudster, in one of the deals, Ayush says, "This man sells the land in front of the mayor, who should have actually done something for the absconding happening in his presence.” Basant details the history of land deals in Ayodhya involving disputed...

In this episode, host Akanksha Kumar is joined by Diksha Munjal, Tanishka Sodhi and Shivangi Saxena of Newslaundry. Diksha and Tanishka talk about their report on sugarcane workers in Beed district of Maharashtra and how the pandemic has affected them. They talk about a woman who had to resume work just a day after her husband’s death to repay their debt, a rise in hysterectomies and the local government’s help through “guidance or margdarshan”. Akanksha and Shivangi talk about their...

In this episode, host Nidhi Suresh is joined by Sidharth Singh of Newslaundry. On May 31, Ramdev claimed he had scientific evidence to prove the legitimacy of ayurveda in “curing” hypertension, cancer, arthritis, thyroid issues, liver sclerosis, hepatitis, and fatty liver. He gave a slew of interviews to TV news channels to further attack modern medicine over alleged abuses of the pharmaceutical industry. He also made unproven claims about ayurvedic solutions to longstanding medical...

In this episode, host Ayush Tewari is joined by Nidhi Suresh and Basant Kumar of Newslaundry. The conversation begins with Nidhi Suresh talking about her report on the Muslim staffers of a Bengaluru municipality Covid war room who were removed from their jobs at the behest of BJP MP Tejasvi Surya. She narrates the process and the possible reasons which led to the event. Basant Kumar talks about his story on Dainik Jagran’s report that claims the new farm laws have been beneficial to...