Hafta letters: Electoral bond reports, extremism, data leaks

Dear NL,

Congratulations to NL and the Project Electoral Bond team. I have been following NL’s reporting on political funding since your piece on February 19, 2024, and the stories have educated me of the extent of nexus between corporates, political parties in power, and the enforcement agencies. 

However, I am failing to see any direct establishment of quid pro quo. Is NL doing stories examining causal evidence of an understanding between “a” corporate and “a” ruling party for favours in return for money for the time frame of deposit and encashment of EBs? Or am I missing something? Else, for the jaded public it remains no more than further evidence of crony capitalism, harassment by enforcement agencies and the “hamaam mein sab nange hain” rhetoric (which is problematic in itself but not enough to jolt us citizens to action).

Keep up the good work.

Swetha Godavarthi

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In response to a journalist’s question about how Muslims won’t be able to practise their Sharia law, Amit Shah replied, “Indian Muslims have not been living as per Sharia law since British times, because the criminal code was always uniform. If Sharia is applied, then thieves will have their hands cut, rapists will be stoned to death, Muslims can’t take loans, can’t take interest.” 

To this, prominent Muslim handles on X replied that they do indeed want Sharia criminal code applied in India. People like Anas Tanvir (Hafta panellist on UCC) have tweeted in response to this…My question to the panel is, how will India address this kind of religious extremism where prominent Muslims want to take us back to the barbaric times of hands being cut, and adulterers being stoned to death? 

Mr Skeptic

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How do you think parties like the BJP decide on candidates for a Lok Sabha seat? Is there a scientific or data-backed method for this which Modi or Shah will use? Like carrying out surveys in constituencies? 

Anonymous 

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Hi NL Team,

Love your work as always. Just wanted to let you know, this week I received a notification on my iPhone that my password for Newslaundry.com has been compromised and appeared in a data leak. Not sure if this has anything to do with the attack on your website but this does make me worry as you do have sensitive information for your subscribers like card details.

Hope you guys look into keeping your and our data safe.

Ravinder Singh 

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Noam Chomsky expressed in 2023 that it was misguided to convene the G-20 meeting in what he described as the “occupied and brutalised” region of Jammu and Kashmir, raising concerns about the moral stance of the grouping in holding such an event in a region marked by suffering. 

Should India reconsider its pursuit of Kashmir given the ongoing suffering of its people, while the efforts yield little practical outcome? The comparison drawn between India’s handling of Kashmir and Israel’s occupation suggests a troubling parallel, with reports indicating a better situation in Azad Kashmir compared to Jammu and Kashmir. Can Newslaundry verify this claim?

Julian Casablancas 

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Hello,

Abhinandan’s glorification of the US democracy is very annoying. US has been a democracy for almost 250 years now, and at least until 1960s there were mob lynchings of minorities. Even today, so called goon squads and KKK are active over here.

He wants to give the oldies leniency on their dogmatic behaviour on the LGBTQ+ communities but not on Indian democracy, which is barely 100 years old. 

Listening to him makes it sound like it’s the end of Indian democracy. I don’t deny it’s a threatened state, but it’s the case almost everywhere. Indians have constantly protested injustice. Sometimes it works (2011 protests) and sometimes it doesn’t (anti-CAA protests). That doesn’t mean that he uses his platform to make a generalised statement. 

As an avid subscriber, my request to Abhinandan is to kindly relax his negativity on Indian democracy and the glorification of the west.

Pruthul Ravindranath

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It seems Prashant Kishor is really optimistic about us Indians and our revolutionary spirit whereas Ravish Kumar is getting more cynical each day. It would be a treat if you could get them both for an interview.

Also, can you do a segment on anti-defection laws and how they could or could not apply to hostile takeovers of state governments? (It seems my state of Himachal is getting ready to be taken over.)

And can you explain why in Himachal it seems that everyone is able to sustain farms while that is not the case for Punjab, UP and Bihar? After the abolition of zamindari, paharis are well off compared to other states. Why?

Comrade Shepard 

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