A review of #NLHafta by Laxminarayan, Sagar & others

Dear Abhinandan, 

Over last few months, I have been listening to past NL Haftas and I can’t praise the NL team enough. Hafta has helped me cope with my depression. It has been there for me through many sleepless nights.

I have subscribed again after a delay of a few months, for which I am sorry. I hope I can continue the subscription in the coming months. The sole purpose of my writing this letter is to acknowledge the effort that the NL team has put in creating its content.

Wish you all a subscriber-filled new year.

Laxminarayan

PS: It would be great if you can revive the global summits or childhood matters.

Content-wise, they are the best that I have encountered so far.

***

Hi Team NL!

This is Sagar, your friendly neighbourhood conspiracy theory guy (check my Hafta 166 response), with his erratic dose of conspiracy theory that I smell out of the happenings in Indian politics.

Will be putting it this time as a question: How would you respond to the plausibility of the sudden interview of Mr Prime Minister to ANI being merely a megalomaniac’s response to the otherwise limited ‘trolling’ that he got for not being able to answer a gentleman’s question, which he “satisfactorily” answered and “definitely didn’t avoided” with “…Chaliye Puducherry ko vanakkam”?

Thanks,
No longer a muftkhor,
Sagar Patwal.

***

Hey guys,
While listening to the latest Hafta, I heard about Abhinandan’s suggestion to a subscriber to hang out with other subscribers. I thought that you guys must have surely thought of having a dating service on your platform for an additional revenue stream (since it’s quite common among other media companies). Was there any specific reason for not going for it? Not necessarily a full-blown OkCupid-kind dating service, but perhaps some smaller initiative?

I will end my rambling here.

Cheers,
A slightly lonely subscriber,
Akshat

***

Hi NL team,
This email is almost 400 words long and I’m okay if you do not read this out on either of your podcasts. But if you were to read this, please refer to my name as BS. I do not wish for my full name to be read out. 

I became a regular listener of Hafta shortly before you reached the landmark of 150 episodes. Then, I had given some feedback on your mobile app which you also have acknowledged in many episodes that it was ‘shitty’. I had then received an email too that the team was working on it and it was soon to be updated. Today, you have crossed 200 episodes, a year has passed but no update has come and no errors have been fixed. I heard Abhinandan mention on one of the episodes of Hafta about a plan for expansion that was coming up in the new year. Maybe it’s a good idea to first consolidate what you have before you plan to expand.

Another feedback is for your podcasts. The episode of Charcha and Awful and Awesome have been very irregular. Yes, Manisha has made sure that all of us get to know that Abhinandan has been travelling ‘for work’ and you will want to plug in that Rajyashree has a full-time job and that we must rope in more subscribers if we want the podcasts to be regular, but what about Charcha, which doesn’t live up to its tagline of ‘aapka kharcha, aapki charcha, hafta dar hafta‘. 

Maybe, you would want to say, ki itne mein to itna hi milega! if that be the case, then we shall accept Newslaundry for what it is and not expect more. If you would want to plug in your request for more subscribers, it may sound like you are saying, ‘Ki humse to itna hi ho payega. Aapko is se zyada chahiye to aap hi subscribers le ke aaiye’. 

While you are at it, since most of your podcasts deal with current affairs, news and events, maybe its a good idea to start all your podcasts with a mention about the date and time at which it is being recorded so as to provide the listener with a reference and some context about what to expect especially when they may be listening to the podcasts a few days after its release. 

Regards,
BS

***

Hi Newslaundry,

I am a recent (as in brand new) subscriber of your channel/portal. I have to confess I was hooked on to NL because of the Newsance videos on Youtube (I hope I ‘ve got the spelling right) which I binge-watched and I think Manisha is bang on with her satire, though I feel she has started slipping a bit in the past recent ones. I then graduated on to NL podcast especially Hafta, which I again started listening as a way to a quick update on recent issues while travelling to and from work. I must say, bravo guys. 

But as someone great had once said or may say in the future: With bouquets come brickbats and with cheese croquet, a lot of barbeque sauce. Anyways, I do disagree with Abhinandan a lot, he of the self-crowned ‘dick’ fame so let me start with him. I will be skating and slipping across timelines and episodes so do bear with me.

I saw Abhinandan’s full interview (finally) with Vivek Agnihotri and though I am no fan of Mr Agnihotri’s psychotic rants and illogical logics, he did make a pretty valid point (as per me) about brain-washing in college. Now Abhinandan scoffed at him and suggested a counter-point that brainwashing would be easier if done in schools as the children are supposed to be much more pliable or mouldable, the best eg being child soldiers.

However, another point of view is the anti-establishment one. If you look at the biographies of Majid Nawaz or any of the Quilliam founders (an anti-radicalisation think tank in the UK) or read the theories of radicalisation, the best age of turning a person against the state, or a particular establishment is late teens or early twenties. Look at the various examples: from Timothy McVeigh, Boston bombers, Charlie Hebdo shooters or our desi ISIS wannabes from Kerala everyone was in the same age group. The relationship between radicalisation and causal factors is not exactly one-to-one but more probabilistic. So it’s not exactly laughable, what Mr Agnihotri said about college kids getting influenced or radicalised. Abhinandan also needs to turn down his affected nonchalance as that becomes irritable at times.

Also, facts or their reporting is subjective. There is no absolute truth in the world as truth depends on the crutch of words and languages, each with its own semantics which can be interpreted by anyone as he/she wants. A lot of philosophers including Wittgenstein have postulated on this. It would be nice for you to read something on those lines. The kala kurta/white kurta analogy also does not hold much ground as you assume that the person in front of you is perceiving the colours in the same manner as you which may or may not be true. A lot of writers have also commented on the myth of Jesus and Mohammad saying that they were more a conglomeration of region-specific practices and beliefs anthropomorphised as these saints/ prophets. The point is every fact can be rebutted using an alternate set of facts. I would request you to just tone done that arrogant facade.

Your segment on the Genpact suicide case was really good and Abhinandan, dude you blew my mind when you said that conviction of a person cannot be hostage to the unpredictable behaviour of the suicide victim. I totally agree with you.

Guys, but you really need to read up on national security and defence as I feel you are totally hopeless there. There is hardly any discussion on this particular topic. Lot of times you guys just say whatever this and whatever that and after a time it feels a bit repetitive or seems to give an impression that whatever encompasses a lot of your knowledge. 

Still it’s a great effort and obviously, I want you people to do ‘din duguni and raat chauguni’ prosperity as I have subscribed to you.

Regards,
Akshat