This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Mehraj D Lone, and Anand Vardhan are joined by Dr Madhu Gupta, a professor of community medicine at PGIMER, Chandigarh.

The conversation begins with India’s Covid situation. On vaccine supplies, Abhinandan asks about India’s export of vaccines and whether developed nations are hoarding supplies. On the surge in Covid infections in the country, Madhu says, “Even when everything came back to normal, the virus was still there. So, it wasn’t just the health community but the people as well who became complacent.”

Mehraj points out that Covid issues have “never been election issues”. “This is fundamentally a public health issue,” he says, “like that of education or workers’ rights. They have rarely been election issues in this country.”

On the ongoing assembly elections, Manisha brings up the prospect of clubbing the remaining phases into one phase. Anand talks about the “political reasons” that might prevent this from happening. Manisha also describes the different narratives she came across while reporting on the Cooch Behar firings.

The panel also discusses the differences in media coverage of the Kumbh Mela and last year’s Tablighi Jamaat, and a lot more.

Listen.

Text by Ritika Chauhan.

Hafta letters:Discussing media theory, Covid death statistics, letters of appreciation