This week on NL Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Anand Vardhan are joined by Govindraj Ethiraj, the founder of IndiaSpend and BOOM.

The conversation begins with the floods in Bihar and Assam. While these usually dominate headlines every year, this year there’s been very little attention from the mainstream media. “Only local media has been reporting on it,” Anand says, “and there have been lives lost, but maybe because of the Taliban, it has not been in the headlines.”

The panel then discusses news reports on India’s GDP growth, job losses during the pandemic, and industries shutting down. But how, then, is the market still booming? Govindraj attributes this to how “people opened demat accounts” during the pandemic and “started investing in the stock market, because it is an easy way to make fast cash”.

On the Modi government’s revamp of Jallianwala Bagh and the criticism that followed, the panel talks about the need to learn the difference between renovation and preservation. They also talk about the Karnal sub-divisional magistrate’s order to lathicharge farmers and the kind of power wielded by bureaucrats.

Listen.

Text by Utkarsh Tripathi.

Hafta letters: Taliban takeover, keeping answers crisp, podcast player issues