Hafta letters: Reservation in private sector, religious scholars, Newslaundry app

Hi team,

Was listening to the 10 year special Hafta! Congratulations and for many more to come. The “friends of Newslaundry” is a fantastic vision and would be happy to help if selected.

With respect to the growth trajectory, I’ve been working on a platform to bring hyper local news creators (YouTube) on a single platform. They’re there, and there is minimal setup cost. What’s required is training and a QC structure. My work was a mix of SVOD+AVOD, however you can look at pure play subscription driven. This can actually move into the space of a subscription driven journalism school too. All the best and happy to help.

Kumud Shankar

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I find Hafta a very good alternative to reading editorials in a newspaper. Great election coverage as well.

I want to suggest a discussion in Hafta regarding unemployment and the representation issue, which is core to the current election as well. The fact that the government cannot provide jobs at the scale that the new workforce is entering, is known. The only way is the new private businesses and old ones growing.

Having said that, it seems to me that in a decade or two, we will be talking about reservations in the private sector. Shouldn't the advisors or bureaucrats of the central government or even at state level, start drafting policies to ease into this slowly rather than wait till shit hits the fan, then make a law as a knee jerk reaction?

In my close circle, even the BJP voters who identified with Vajpayee's BJP seem to feel disillusioned, but the emotion triggering news keeps them hooked.

Fan of NL

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Regarding the distinction between a religious leader and a religious scholar, I'm 100 percent in agreement with Anand's definition.

Most of us (not just Indians) tend to be hostile towards any scholarship on our culture by “external” scholars – be it Hindus or Muslims, orthodox Christians or Jews. When an article or a book is written that may even remotely question or even try to explain certain aspects of our faith, hecklers rise and everyone tends to be on the defensive. Case in point is the wonderfully researched books by Wendy Doniger. Her books on Hinduism were pilloried, and the powers that be even tried to ban them from circulation in India.

I have even heard justification from some of my Hindu friends, that one has to be “an insider” to fully understand the nuances or substance behind our faith. Wendy does not qualify according to them. By this measure, only Hindu religious leaders can act as scholars. Any other scholarly opinion will be flatly dismissed by the orthodoxy.

Venu

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I've noticed a remarkable improvement in the NL team letting guests finish their statements since the last time I complained about it. Kudos to Abhinandan and the team.

My new complaint is about the state of the mobile app. I think it's almost a year since the app launch has been "just a couple of weeks away". If it's still going to take long, you can instead ask your tech team to transform the website into a Progressive Web App (PWA), so that people can install it as a native mobile app. It would be easier and cheaper to maintain a single site instead of the site and mobile apps.

I also suggest a follow-up on the Who Owns Your Media project by researching FDI in media houses. The TV shows on many “news” channels about the Ukraine invasion – supporting and promoting Russian aggression – suggest funding by international right-wing spaces.

Happy Holi in advance, keep up the great work.

AJ

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Dear NL team,

I think that people who claim that BJP won 2017 on the basis of Hindutva or Hindu-Muslim conflict have a very superficial understanding of Uttar Pradesh, its society and politics. BJP's strategy in 2017 was built around an anti-Jatav, anti-Yadav consolidation. And only in the Doab area of western UP (Baghpat, Muzzafarnagar, Saharanpur, Meerut) was it based on anti-Muslim consolidation.

People also underestimate the role the Apna Dal, SBSP, Nishad party played in setting caste equations in favour of the BJP in Purvanchal, where they were historically non-players. I don't want to give predictions, but being from that part of UP, I think we will see some surprising results on the 10th. I had sent a 2,000-word article explaining it in detail.

Ayush

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Hi!

With respect to Hafta 369, couple of quick questions:

1) Could US and EU sanctions on the Ruble further strengthen Yuan? China has very strategically placed Yuan against USD for buying crude oil and trading with the EU and others.

2) Team discussed that WhatsApp chat about China attacking Taiwan could be the next scenario. The team could speculate, what if the current Indian government decides to go on war to get back PoK? Maybe Putin and Xi don't need war to help their domestic problems, but I am sure an attack on PoK will ensure Modi as undisputed leader of India till he dies.

Regards,

Aviral Tiwari

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Hi Newslaundry, love your Hafta show. Have been watching election video reports which are really amazing and show how much ground coverage is needed to know what are the real issues of the people.

Today morning, I was reading the Central Vista report of Newslaundry. It's a great report. I was thinking that since the new Lok Sabha chamber has 888 seats and delimitation is coming up in 2026 and elections of 2024, where 543 seats will be contested, how are they going to increase the number of seats in 2026 delimitation? Will they conduct another election in 2026 for those 888 seats, or postpone elections of 2024 to 2026, citing huge expenses and not being able to conduct those elections in 2024 and 2026? I know it's a bit of a long stretch, talking about events happening two to four years from now, but would love your insight on this.

This is my first letter to Newslaundry. Have been a subscriber for the last one year and renewed last week again for another year. Pay to keep news free from advertisers. Peace.

Sushrut Sharma