Hello NL Team,

I am a subscriber and I am really a fan of the work you people are doing. I would try to keep my letter short, but apologies, if I exceed the word limit. I really like the Hafta podcast as it allows us, the news consumer, to know the biases and beliefs of the people running Newslaundry. I would like to comment on last week’s Hafta and especially on the debate on secularism.

Though I am not against the concept of the state being secular, I was struck when Manisha and Abhinandan said the BJP and RSS do not have the intellectual capacity to even play around the nuances of the term secular. I would like to tell the panel that one historical personality that the BJP and the right-wingers of our country adore is Chanakya\Kautilya. His treatise, Arthashastra, as many scholars describe is a secular document and deals with the running of the state in a secular fashion. By secular I mean “this worldly” as defined by Anand in the last episode.

Religion, in the Arthashastra, is only used as a management tool. Anand Vardhan can expand upon my argument if he’s present. So my humble request to you people is, please do not underestimate the BJP or the ideology of Hindutva, They can reach into their ideology and pick people like Chanakya to play their politics, even on the topic of secularism.

This underestimation of Hindutva is, I believe, due to the lack of appreciation of classical Indian philosophy and the Sanskrit language among the elite in India. They would appreciate Plato and Aristotle, but would not like to keep the ancient Indian thinker on a par with these figures, because either they despise the culture of India, or they are unaware or fear a majoritarian backlash in the country.

I would like to request you all, especially Abhinandan, not to reject ancient Indian thought as backward and superstitious. Abhinandan had said in a previous Hafta that all those whom he knows who studied Sanskrit ended up doing pujas and havans and Sanskrit is good for that only. Since he is fond of podcasts, I would like to recommend him a podcast about the history of philosophy in India. This podcast is not hosted by a Hindutva-vadi but two professors, one from LMU Munich and the other from NYU. Hope you find this enlightening.

Thanks,

Ashwin K

Hello Team,

Especially Abhinandan you commie (just like we are Madrasis). You claim Tamil pride despite the fact that you can’t say two consecutive words in Tamil and don’t know the difference between Telugu and Kannada. You said chill maadi which is Kannada and you pointed at the people of Andhra.

I really wonder how none of you can even understand the RK Nagar elections despite reading news or is it so that the bhai log media have not understood it either and south of Madrasis out of their syllabus.

First things first, Sasikala is not smart as Abhinandan thinks she is. She is just a servant of Jaya, who aspired to be CM and is spending her time in jail. TTV Dhinakaran is her protege and he and the people who supported Sasikala were expelled from the party. Meanwhile, the AIADMK party is run by OPS and EPS after the two factions united. Initially, there were three factions of the AIADMK – OPS camp, EPS camp and Sasikala camp.

The RK Nagar election was big because of two reasons: Initially, the case about which of the three camps would take the two-leaves symbol and the bypoll was initially cancelled because of bribing voters (which incidentally happened according to local reports up to Rs 100 crore). Madhusudhan, the AIADMK party candidate, was a long-time loyalist and his loss is huge because now TTV promises that he will be the party president because he won the elections.

Incidentally, one day after your recording, AIADMK suspended 44 leaders who supported TTV. So it’s safe to say that if you guys like entertainment, follow TN politics because nothing comes close to even Abhinandan’s supposed mockery of the Madrasis.

Thanks and regards,

Kishore

Hello NL Hafta Team,

I’m an old fan but a recent subscriber (thanks to your new year discount). Firstly, I’d like to mention how much I appreciate the format of NL Hafta; the importance and the need to “talk with” and not merely “talk about” people one disagrees with is often understated in politics, and it is always a pleasure listening to your discussions where “agreeing to disagree” is often acknowledged.

Congratulations on your 150 Haftas. I binged Hafta 151 and 152, and thought I’ll mail about a couple of questions/comments that popped up:

• Without sounding too critical of your coverage of news from the South, I was quite surprised at Abhinandan’s description of his visit to Rameswaram. The city received it’s “Achhe Din” when Modi visited and inaugurated APJ Abdul Kalam’s memorial earlier in 2017, and when I visited Rameswaram a few months after that, the roads were impeccably new and maintained. I did want to point out that the villages Abhinandan mentioned on the way to Dhanushkoti were actually damaged from the Rameswaram cyclone of 1964, and not the tsunami, as was mentioned by him.
• Just within the two episodes, I heard Anand say he thought NDTV is the worst news channel in India, Manisha saying Zee was terrible, and Abhinandan saying Economic Times was the worst. And we’ve all established Times Now and Republic TV are below rock-bottom. I couldn’t help but wonder if you could all suggest which channels you think are more-or-less reliable to follow (a “relatively good” list of Indian media, now that we’ve discussed which ones are the worst).
• Finally, I thought I’ll point attention to a shameful hate campaign against film-actor Parvathy (and her films) that has been discussed quite a lot within the Malayalam media over the last few days, to see if you might want to take it up. Also, Rajnikanth’s political entry, but I presume you’ll be talking about that already.

Once again, thank you for keeping Hafta and its discussions rich, diverse, and inclusive.

Mufatkhor-turned-subscriber,

Hari

P.S: The editorial internship advertised on your website, does one have to be in India for this?

P.P.S: I use Podcast Addict player, and despite following the RSS feed for Newslaundry, I can’t seem to access full episodes after signing in. I can still use the Newslaundry App, except that it crashed a couple of times while I was listening to it, and the pause and resume options don’t seem available. Is there a solution?

Harikrishnan S

PhD Scholar,

Ireland India Institute,

School of Law and Government,

Dublin City University

Hi NL Hafta Team,

Just renewed my subscription for the year and thank you for the concession. I will keep supporting this initiative till you people accommodate voices from the left, right and centre. My main reason to tune into Hafta each week is to have good insight of current affairs and to listen views which are different or in some case stark opposite from mine. The recommendations you guys give in the end are superb and I go through most of them and they helped me a great deal personally and professionally.

Big thank you and happy new year to all, and a small request that try to make sure Vardhan sir and Madhu ma’am or at least one of them is present in each Hafta episode.

Proud subscriber,

Chandramauli