Dear NL team,

My name is Satya Pandey and I am a subscriber of NL. Kudos to all the work that you guys are doing. I am an avid listener of NL Hafta and wish to put my points forward for discussion.

This is regarding Madhu’s point in NL Hafta 143 about “All should compulsorily work for 2 years in rural areas”. I agree and disagree with her. For people who have received subsidised education perhaps this holds some value but for privately educated students who have taken study loans, this should not be compulsory. I am a firm believer of “everything in life is incentive driven, sometimes these incentives can be emotional while most often than not the incentives are materialistic.” As Manisha and Madhu pointed out later that if you really want good doctors to work in rural areas, give them incentives (such as better salaries and facilities) then one might think about it. Also on the same subject, the most popular personalities in our country are actors, cricketers and politicians (not journalists or scientists sadly). At the same time, these three are the professions that do not require educational qualifications. We can debate on whether professions require educational degrees or not, but perhaps a “two-year compulsory rural service” for politicians is not a bad idea before contesting an election.

This is regarding standing for the national anthem in cinemas. I totally disagree with this. Firstly, not standing during anthem in cinemas is as much disrespect as playing the anthem in cinemas before sleazy movies (read entertainers). There is a difference between being “patriotic” and being a “nationalist”. I wondered whether there is a genetic reason to be patriotic and is there a difference between a patriot and a nationalist. I stumbled onto some articles and have attached one which summarises it beautifully. It says that patriotism is more about “ingroup love” while nationalism is more about “outgroup hatred”. Standing up for the anthem is less about inculcating ingroup love but is more about creating outgroup hatred toward people who don’t stand up.

I end the mail with all best wishes to the team. Keep up the good work.

Best wishes,

Satya Pandey

Netherlands

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Hello everyone at NL Hafta,

I recently became a subscriber to Newslaundry. Love how you keep news neutral. I have a comment on two things that were said in the last Hafta.

1. Anand Vardhan, a brilliant mind at NL, said that women at times go with the flow to the sexual advances made to them for their own career advancement. He mentioned that due to this, deserving men become casualties. I agree to the statement but to add there is another casualty that is affected by this, that being the women who actually get promotions for their hard work. People often have a perception that such women might have provided sexual favours to their superiors. In this manner, women also become casualties of such a scenario. Although perceptions do not matter for some, life is somehow affected. The two cases may not be comparable, but these classes of people are casualties nonetheless. (Sorry for using the word ‘casualties’ too much)
2. Abhinandan Sekhri, another brilliant mind at NL, said that there is no other option than to recapitalise banks. I agree with you on this matter. My point of disagreement is the statement that ‘banks are too big to shut down’. The head of banks have this news as well, and hence banks run irresponsibly. I think banks should not be considered as too big to close so as to make them responsible for their actions. I know this is a very controversial opinion but it is my personal comment on this situation, so I would like you to comment on banks’ irresponsibility.

On a different note, I saw two episodes Ranga uncle’s Nichod on Youtube. Are there more? And if not, please bring the show back.

Finally, best of luck to NL team.

Yours faithfully,

Trikal Paul

Hi NL Team,

I am a relatively new subscriber to NL. I have had a chance to hear only three episodes of Hafta and have become quite a fan especially due to the diversity and transparent nature of the views of your entire panel. I guess the diversity of views originates from the diversity of the personalities of the panel members themselves which itself is quite remarkable.

In the last Hafta, you spoke about Som’s remark on the Taj Mahal being built by traitors and that it’s a shame on Indian culture. My take is: Which Indian culture is this gentleman talking of? India did not exist as a nation before the colonisation by the British. It was a just a conglomerate of kingdoms each with its own diversity, customs and uniqueness, much like the diversity of your panel. 🙂 Come to think of it, had the British not colonised our land, today we would have been like Europe. Some mergers of kingdoms, some splitting, some divided by language, some divided by religion, some developed, some underdeveloped. To date, the land is so diverse that people talk of belonging to their state first and nation later. The language, culture, food, clothes, customs – everything changes every 200 km as you travel across the country. So, to say who was a traitor to India and who was loyal to Indian culture in the pre-British era is a non-starter in itself.

Hence, one question: What is the only thing that’s common to the entire country despite its vast diversity?

Thanks very much for the good work that you people are doing, keep trolling Republic TV.

Answer is given below.

Regards,

SB

The answer: Currency. Except which, nothing is common – language, religion, facial features, geography, food, culture, dance, music, agriculture, economy, nothing except currency.

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Hello folks at Newslaundry,

I have been your on-off subscriber but I love your content. I felt I should ask you guys if this qualifies as obstructing freedom of expression.

I posted a comment on the article, How the Japanese loan for India’s bullet train is a rip-off , which was just facts and not loaded or biased but to my surprise, they took down the comment five times. You can read the comment in the attachment. It would be awesome if you could discuss in Hafta or some other platform of yours if The Wire is intolerant to a counter voice.

Agam Kalra