Click here to download the full episode to listen to it offline.

In this episode of NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, Raman Kirpal, and Anand Vardhan are joined by two guests: Mohan Guruswamy, author and chairman-founder of the Centre for Policy Alternatives and the Guruswamy Centre, and Tanmoy Goswami, the Correspondent’s sanity correspondent who writes on mental health. Among other things, the panel talks about the India-China border flare-up, and Sushant Singh Rajput’s death and how the media covered it.

Mohan explains the location of the Line of Actual Control and how the India-China skirmish came about. “There are two LACs, the Chinese LAC and the Indian LAC; they overlap,” he says. Abhinandan asks him what triggered the Chinese action. Mohan speculates that alarm bells in China could have been raised by Amit Shah’s statement on recovering Aksai Chin, and India’s push for a WHO investigation into Covid-19.

Mohan adds that the Chinese are “hyper-aggressive on all sectors of their borders”. Anand weighs in by pointing out the recent pattern of China’s militarism and aggression. The panel also discusses the difficulties in reporting on issues like this one, given the ambiguity surrounding the whole episode.

Moving on to the death of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, Abhinandan asks Tanmoy about the media coverage, and the broader norms of reporting on people who die by suicide. Tanmoy says the attitude of many senior media professionals towards suicide is informed by the fact that suicide was criminalised in India for a long time. “Suicide was reported by crime reporters, and so there’s a legacy of those days,” he says.

Now, Tanmoy says, editors have started responding positively to contentions against sensationalist headlines or triggering illustrations. “The number of vigilant eyes in India has multiplied,” he says. He also talks about the intersectional nature of problems causing suicide, and how always equating suicide and mental illness is a “horrible myth”.

The panel also discusses the lacunae in entertainment and sports reporting, nepotism and cliques in several industries, frivolous court cases, and much more.

Tune in!

Song: Ae Watan, Ae Watan - Shaheed (1965)

Hafta letters: Tom Cotton's oped, KCR and Telangana, Indian politics on a chessboard

References

A Chinese attack is on the cards, and India needs to prepare

Why the Ladakh standoff may spiral into a larger showdown

The American Press Is Destroying Itself

NL Conversation: Anand Patwardhan on the Centre's apathy towards the poor, and the Ayodhya verdict

Recommendations

Mohan Guruswamy

India China Relations: The Border Issue and Beyond

Tanmoy Goswami

No Way To Say Goodbye

Anand

The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

The Outsider by Albert Camus

Parshuram Ki Pratiksha by Ramdhari Singh Dinkar

Raman

Strictly Personal: Manmohan and Gursharan by Daman Singh

Manisha

Stop Press: What the furore over Tom Cotton's NYT piece tells us about the media's role in society

Mehraj

Chhattisgarh's Adivasi prisoners: In Burkapal, most men have been jailed without trial for three years

As Muslim women lead India's battle for democracy, Bollywood presents them as suicide bombers the Hindu state must save

Abhinandan

PB Mehta writes: There has almost never been a time in India's recent history when it was so bereft of leadership

Firms that profit from surveillance technology now oppose it : The Indicator from Planet Money

Police fines fund city budgets but hurt community relations : The Indicator from Planet Money

Produced by Aditya Varier, recorded by Anil Kumar, edited by Harshula Sharma.

Get updates about our podcasts via Twitter and Facebook.

You can also find the show on:

Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | Castbox | Pocket Casts | TuneIn | Stitcher | SoundCloud | Breaker | Hubhopper | Overcast | JioSaavn | Podcast Addict | Headfone