Hello NL team,

First of all, I would like to say that I am a huge fan and sadly, discovered Newslaundry quite late. Listening to NL Hafta has become a ritual for me every weekend with every episode giving me some new insights and way to look at things. I have been a subscriber for just a couple of months, but plan to be for much more.

Getting the obvious out of the way, I have a few points I would like to make about some discussions in the last couple of Haftas:

1. Rajdeep – Arnab banter: If the phone pings me every day or hour about what is happening around me, it means that the institutions selling access to facts have lost their business models. What these institutions and journalists have to do then is to sell opinions. And when these opinions are not viral enough, the outrage will have to do.

It may sound weird saying it, but when Rajdeep and Arnab had that spat, it is because they are fighting for relevance. When the politicians and economists are jumping directly over the journalists to reach their listeners/readers, journalists have a harder time setting an agenda. I will say Rajdeep and Arnab are mere slightly popular participants in the trending hashtags which are made trending by somebody who is not them. So, what option will you have if not to shout and then to shout louder and then to walk across the studio as one is shouting loudly (as mentioned in the last Hafta). Coming to the point, I found the long discussion on their spat in the last Hafta to be boring, tedious and irrelevant.

I am from maybe a very small but fast-growing group who have turned off their TV, and while looking for some good news sources have found Newslaundry. So, as a fan, please keep up the good work, but I will fast forward your podcast next time such a discussion takes place 🙂 – and this is feedback from a big fan of NL.

2. Bullet Trains: While following this discussion on twitter, NL Hafta and other places, I saw people being slightly optimistic, pessimistic, neutral towards this very expensive and ambitious project. I agree with the point raised in one of the Haftas that this project is mainly an ego trip for Modi.

But when I heard about the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train, the first thing that came to my mind is why not extend it to Goa? Let’s give Goa tourism a boost. And I envision a tri-bullet train network between Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai, they being IT, biotech and minor manufacturing hubs. And similarly, a train from Delhi to Amritsar via Chandigarh.

Anyhow, my point being, whenever this project is discussed, we always think of where we are right now, a poor country, and how can we afford such a thing? Why don’t we think that if couple of decades from now, India has the best infrastructure in world among the developing countries and for that, what do we do now? I am sure that we as a country can aim to be among the best in terms of infrastructure if we work towards it. But for that, we at least need to consider this option. Just a point of view, I wanted to get on the table because I did not see it anywhere else.

Anyhow, this is what I think about when I am trying to drive on pothole-ridden Bengaluru roads or thought about last week when my wife was unfortunate enough to land in Mumbai after heavy rains and got stuck.

I will finish my email now. Please do bring Saurabh when you can, his thoughts are a delight and I learn from him a lot. A big fan of Abhi, Ranga Uncle, Mr. Vardhan, Madhu, Manisha and Atul.  Also, I am sure Ranga uncle won’t be able to guess where I am from even if he tries many times!

Cheers!

Mayank