This week on NL Hafta, Manisha Pande, Raman Kirpal and Mehraj D Lone of Newslaundry are joined by data journalist Rukmini S.

Rukmini explains her recent findings about actual Covid death tolls in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Talking about the key insights she gleaned from looking at the data, she says, "Instead of hanging on to the notion of exceptionalism, India should have actually focused on why it was that these numbers were low."

Mehraj asks if it’s possible for a vast, diverse and poor country like India to collect and make publicly available healthcare and other data. "We have had a legacy of slowness and lack of access,” Rukmini replies, “but now it's with a newly added vindictiveness.”

Analysing the Indian media’s coverage of the attack on an elderly Muslim man in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, Manisha affirms the significance of aggressive reporting on such matters.

Raman argues that by filing a police case against a few journalists for reporting the assault, the government has made it another hook to compel Twitter to fall in line with the new IT rules.

The panel also discuss the land “scam” involving the Ram temple trust and the alleged role of absconding fraudsters in it.

Listen.

Text by Ritika Chauhan.

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