Hi NL team. 

I was appalled at your discussion on the killing of Avni the tiger in your latest Hafta 197. First of all, if you have not read much on the subject or if you don’t have subject matter experts, please don’t discuss. It is better to show ignorance than to sound incoherent and foolish. The discussion was extremely lazy, insensitive and callous. I am a subscriber and a regular listener of all your podcasts. I used to rely on NL Hafta for your insights on politics where I don’t know much.

But in this case, it saddened me that you were on a wrong track and therefore I have now become cynical of your other discussions as well. In Avni’s killing case, there are so many loopholes. Instead of trying to understand the case in depth, you guys went on and on about Maneka Gandhi. Manisha Pande has not even read the article herself which she is recommending, and yet she went on to talk about how those shooters were chosen without any knowledge. Of course, we are in an anthropocentric society as Anand puts it, but it doesn’t mean we should disregard the environment.

A few points to note:

1. There’s no scientific evidence that this tiger was responsible for all the killings.

2. All the claimed killings happened inside the forest. 

3.If Avni was a man-eater then how come there were no killings in the last six months?

4. There is a way to handle man-eaters and in this case, no procedures were followed. In a civilised society, she could have been tranquilised and taken to a zoo. 

5. Since the dart was planted after she was killed, the cover-up attitude of forest officials was clearly exposed. 

6. Most importantly, if tomorrow more humans are killed, it will be attributed to other tigers living in the area and this can be used as a pretext to get rid of all the tigers and hand over the land to big companies. 

These are some of the points which show that it was heavily goofed up. This was a murder of an extreme level and you guys killed my joy of listening to NL Hafta with your totally apathetic discussion over it.

Please listen to your own Reporters Without Orders: Ep 42 where Ranjeet Jadhav, a reporter from Mid-Day, has nicely described the case. 

Regards, 

Shobha