A review of NL Hafta by Ayush, Dheeraj and Sandeep

Hi Hafta team,

Firstly thanks a lot for making such amazing Haftas. I seldom use MSM for getting my news. NL is my go-to place for it, specifically Hafta. I have been encouraging my friends as well to take the NL subscriptions.

On the whole, though I find the general political leaning of NL to be different from mine, however, I appreciate the wonderful opposing (to my own) perspective that your team gives.

In the last Hafta, it was hilarious to hear Hartosh’s “we don’t want you in Punjab too because Hindutva-vadi” rant, even without letting Anand complete his thought. It reminded me of my “woke” teenage college friends who would insinuate what I was about to say in relation to politics. IMO, the people with (Indian) Leftist views do that more often and disregard any other views or ideology, as they deem themselves as “superiors” to others through their ideologies, and jump to conclusions.

But just like Hartosh said that Gurudwara is open to all, I’d also like to say: we are open to hearing your opposing political perspectives, despite your disdain for us.

Thanks, Anand, for speaking up this time. I feel you don’t like such unnecessary faceoffs, but it’s good to have it sometimes as it just exposes the deep malaise of opposing people. I mean, he didn’t even slightly apologise for jumping to conclusions. But anyway, that’s what a typical Indian Leftist does.

As regards Hafta, Abhinandan please tone down or time box the rants, as many times it digresses into some other topics and breaks the listener’s link with the ongoing discussion.

I admire and pity the Newsance team because they do some much संघर्ष for us by watching TV MSM (such as Zee, Republic, Sudarshan, NDTV fight, India TV, etc) and give us such amazing humourous content. Keep up the good work, Newsance team. 🙂

Also, I promise to bring as many as subscribers as possible for NL in my personal capacity, especially before the 2019 elections, so that we can have some sane news and views.

Cheers,

Ayush

***

Hi All,

Just realised that you can have Mahagatbandhan for the elections which will help all of you. 

IVM PODCASTS:
Seen & Unseen
Cyrus Says 
(There might be a lot more podcasts! I am an IVM newbie.)

Caravan 
Their strength is Features and Print.

And Newslaundry 
Podcasts 
Newsance 
Long form stories paid by the SENA 

Wow if you guys team up together…

But then … Wishful thinking I guess 

Best Regards,
Dhiraj 

***

Greetings to the gang!

I am an artist/designer based out of Bengaluru, a long time listener and a subscriber.

What I most love most about Hafta are moments that have these great duels of articulations and I wait for them, like roasted peanuts on a plate of mixture. And even if you all do agree with one another, the reasons are varied and that makes an interesting listen. Do you guys have any specific moments that stand out? 

I got hooked in due to the casual aesthetics of the talk yet have these amazing insights everyone brings in. I am a bit apprehensive about suggestions from fellow subscribers on duration, language and “to be prepared” on the topics for the fear that it might lose that organic talk among friends. You guys are doing great! 

Having said that, surprise surprise! I have two suggestions of my own that you are welcome to ignore.

One. Songs in the end. Love the selections and the weird connection it has with the subjects of the week. In a way, they do act like bookmarks if I want to get back at any of recommendations. My only gripe is that they finish a tad too quickly. It adds a nice breather and helps to soak in the entire conversation. Would it be possible to play them longer, if not the full version? Not sure if you are restricted to avoid copyright violations.

Two. Milestone episode (like the 100th or 200th). Instead of having grander settings or “live” recordings, it would be great if you look at all the major events since the last milestone and how they panned out over the weeks/months in the media, instead of focusing on just the previous week. I see the point that when Abhinandan says how most of the nightly debates don’t have a value the next day, I feel it would add a nice bookend to milestones. So many “breaking news” and hashtags fizzle out of public notice owing to a newer, bolder Tamasha V2.0, it would be a nice wrap up to that period of time. It would also be great to see if any one of you has had a change of stance since the time of the event unfolding, now that you have the advantage of a bigger picture.

Angrez apna Lagaan aur ye subscriber apna subscriptions kabhi nahi chodega.

TLDR: You guys are doing great.

PS: Taking a cue from the scientists, researchers and engineers of the subscribers’ pool, please feel free to reach out to me if my illustration skills could be of any use. A link to my illustrations: www.sandsekh.tumblr.com

Regards,
Sandeep Shekhar