Hey Guys,

The conversation on the Tamil boycott of Coca Cola and PepsiCo products was interesting. I figured I’d point out some of the things you got right and wrong.

I spent some time in this industry (I won’t say which of the two companies), working briefly in Retail Marketing, Sales, Quality, Community Outreach, etc. I even spent a few months at massive modern (company owned) manufacturing facility.

Madhu was right (I’m not an economist either) on the fact that much of the revenue generated from Coca Cola and PepsiCo products go into Indian pockets. About half the bottling plants in the country are franchise owned. The small profits generated are also, largely, ploughed back into the country. 

Deepanjana (or was it Manisha) was right on the purported reason for the boycott. It is water depletion. It’s the same reason that Gram Panchayats in Kerala used to shut down plant operations for Coca Cola. That seems to be the overwhelming opinion of the young Tamizh people on my social media feeds (I have a lot of those).

The data backing this, however, is shaky if it exists at all. If you draw ground water (or river water) to make a beverage (Pepsi, Maaza or Bisleri), you’re effectively replacing some other beverage that a Tamilian would otherwise have consumed. If you stop drinking Mirinda and choose to drink Kent RO Water instead (yes, you’d have to drink something else), you’d be using more ground water. Simply because large-scale water filtration systems are more water-efficient. Once the water is filtered, close to 100% of it becomes a carbonated beverage. So the water usage conversation is only legitimate as a locational one, that the plants location near agricultural areas impacts ground water reserves for the immediate neighbourhood. That’s probably why the courts have kept throwing the case out.

Madhu referred to a video that The Coca Cola Company apparently made, talking about the health effects of Coke. If this (https://youtu.be/bHhCP5ad-zM) is the video you’re referring to, it wasn’t really uploaded by Mr Pemberton. The voiceover has been changed. Also the narrative masks the real story. All the calories in Sweetened Carbonated Beverages (Coke etc) come from the sweetener. Excessive consumption of sugars is terrible for you. The US consumes over 10x the amount of Coke per capita that urban India consumes. However Urban India has a 50% higher rate of prevalence of diabetes than the US. There’s the other fact that Indian Coke doesn’t use high-fructose corn syrup unlike American Coke. Cane Sugar is cheaper.

Also the demonisation of artificial sweeteners is largely fact-free scaremongering. It is a post-truth narrative and therefore a little ironic pushed by Madhu. “Chemicals and additives”, “carcinogenic” and other #FoodBabe type jargon is best left out of intelligent debate, in my opinion. Most things can be tested scientifically and have been.

Coming to Mr Chauhan and ThumsUp. Madhu was right, ThumsUp sold very well despite Coke not because of Coke. Parle probably made a mistake selling out. The brand had traction in India and was perceived by consumers to be better tasting, when served at temperatures above 4 degrees centigrade (the required standard for Coke).

We all eat and drink a lot of things that we do for reasons other than pure nutrition and sustenance. Some as an indulgence. Some for a buzz. Why judge only some drinks?

Sheshank

Hey NL team, 

I have been meaning to write to you for some time now. During the course of every Hafta and after it, I mentally frame the letter I would write. However, my own laziness always gets the better of me and I never get down to putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys to be very precise). My appreciation for the NL platform and content is reflected in my status as a subscriber. You guys are doing a great job and I try and recommend you guys to as many of my friends as I can. 

Regarding your subscription and payment gateway, I have a suggestion. I live in the US and my bank here always blocks transactions to servers outside of the US as a security feature. Hence, I can’t use my primary means of online transactions for subscribing. I ended up using a debit card for an Indian bank account. Can you setup a payment method through something like Patreon or Paypal, which has it’s payment servers in the US? I don’t know if this is a problem for you other subscribers. 

I must commend Madhu on her deep dive podcast into topic of post truth. Some of the views presented were very refreshing. I only wish you had presented some contrarian views- people who feel that the world hasn’t really changed and post truth is itself an alternative fact. It would have balanced the podcast well. I also really liked the use of happy music tones during the podcast. This was in stark contrast to Abhinandan’s episode, which was rightfully much bleaker. 

I wish I could join in on the NL Hafta discussions in real time, as it is quite balanced and nuanced, something which is scarce in today’s world. In fact, I find it hard to have nuanced discussion even among friends (sigh). There is one topic I would love to hear your views on: Should anchors/journalists publicly declare their political leanings? Do news media consumers have a right to know this? Something similar to disclosures people make about possible conflicts of interest. No person can be completely objective and a journalist’s bias is bound to creep into their style. It would be awesome if you guys could spare a couple of minutes in the next Hafta. 

I am really looking forward to your science reporting. For a country that loves to tell its children to take up science in school (scope bahut hai!) there isn’t enough appreciation for actual science or the scientific temperament. 

Kudos to the entire NL team (from the Editor-in-chief to the support staff). I hope your movement to make media independent becomes a revolution. 

With regards, 
Aditya Shanker Prasad

Dear NL Team,

In the last Hafta 109, you read out a letter from a listener who made a long case on why there should be no paywall. And I think Anand and Manisha sort of supported that idea but you didn’t have time to go into the details (and I would really love to know their stand). But I disagree and here’s why.

I was a Moofatkhor for some time and I never really took your message “we are ad free, so please pay us” seriously until the paywall. Even after that, I was not too keen on paying money but I was really missing Hafta. Then the chota Hafta came but it only left me wanting for more. And then I seriously considered paying you because I really need frequent dose of what seems to be independent media and if I can only get it by paying for it, then I should actually do that. So I wanted to say that if subscriptions are the only way you are getting money, then this strategy of yours definitely did the trick to make me subscribe just last week. Had there been no paywall, I would have continued to ignore your message. Now if you would make everything free again, I would obviously be like “oh my subscription money is wasted now” because I have a typical Moofatkhor mind. So my subscription was a result of my small mind missing the content that it was very avidly drawn to. It didn’t come from any big great mind that I should pay so that you guys would never have to serve corporations and make huge a impact and it starts the new era of ad-free news.

But now that I have subscribed, I suddenly do care about your impact and thats also why I am writing this email to provide feedback, express some doubts and make suggestions. I do understand the point that the was raised in the email you read – that more free content, more the subscribers. But that is a very ideal scenario where people who read/watch/listen to you identify you as independent media, understand that you have no ads and go ahead to pay you (I wouldn’t call that subscription, that would be donation). Of course the even more ideal scenario is that there be ads and you still remain independent. But you sure will lose your trust instantly. So if subscriptions are the only way you are surviving, then I strongly disagree with idea the other listener proposed. On the other hand, if subscriptions are not the only way you are making money, then I would obviously like to have everything for free.

That said, note that while I do like your work and you do come out as independent media, I am still not 100% sure. I do lean towards the side that you are independent, but sometimes there are some doubts. A large part of these doubts stem out of my prejudiced mind that no media is independent (like “everyone is corrupt”). But also when I look at your posts on Facebook and Twitter, they hardly get any likes, shares or re-tweets. Your visibility on the social media is quite low compared to even so many other insignificant crap. So do you actually have so many subscribers to run Newslaundry without incurring loss? Perhaps you should mention how many subscribers you have and how the money is dealt with in your organization to clear the air on this. Do you take donations? Are you able to pay salaries to your employees with the subscriptions? These are some questions I had.

Finally, I really really really think you should frequent shows of Clothesline, Can You Take It, Why So Serious, NL Interviews etc. Especially Clothesline – it should really be done weekly. These are some shows that directly reach people and imho, the value of all of them lies not just in the quality of one episode but also in its regularity. I am pretty sure I would have paid the subscription even before the paywall had Clotheline been a weekly thing.

Hope I have given some useful feedback.

Best,
Suraj Prabhakaran