Hafta Letters: Uttarakhand disaster, vote chori, scaling up NL

N747 

Congratulations to the team for putting fuse and propulsion fuel in Rahul Gandhi's atom bomb. A serious request: Please share the methodology, related links to resources and key bottlenecks freely in posts and video and audio (and I mean all three freely) with the public. Teach the nation to fish. Sadly IT me berozgaari badh rahi, this will be a nice end to end project for many.

PS: I have tried this for my own constituency and booth so I don't need teaching, but really short of time to teach or do this analysis.

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Soumya 

Hi NL team! I have two questions for Abhinandan.

1) In one of his podcasts, he had mentioned he has some plans of scaling up Newslaundry. Can he please elaborate?

2) The work which you guys are doing needs to reach each and every section of our society. More so, to the unprivileged ones. But, is a subscription-based model and just a digital presence, that too mostly via YouTube, good enough to scale up and reach those sections of the society? Keeping in mind that TV media is far more easily accessible to these sections of society, just word of mouth may not be enough for Newslaundry to scale up fast? What are Abhinandan’s views and plans for that?

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Akhilesh

I am an independent structural engineering consultant in Uttarakhand and have visited almost every town and city in the state. Most areas appear to be built with little regard for proper engineering standards, making them vulnerable to disaster. Even contractors and government engineers often seem unable – or unwilling – to read and follow engineering drawings. Corruption and incompetence further worsen the situation. How are we supposed to fix this?

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Peri Sai Teja 

Respected NL panel, 

I am disappointed that you could not find time to discuss the vote-chori allegations against ECI by Rahul Gandhi but are discussing Trump's tariffs for two straight weeks. It's all the more confounding because NL itself has lamented the fact that many mainstream media seem to be deliberately ignoring these serious allegations. I expected at least a detailed discussion on Hafta. 

I request NL Hafta to kindly publish a timeline of all the controversies, allegations and sly changes of law with regards to ECI so that readers can see the whole picture of how there is a slow but sure abdication of its duties by the ECI. 

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Siddharth

Dear Newslaundry team,

I was eagerly waiting for the response that came in from the Newslaundry team regarding the point of agreeing with the government's line and not cross-questioning it when it is part of the formal announcement. I had an eerie feeling when Sanjeev Srivastava said what he said. I was particularly impressed (could anticipate though) by Abhinandan, who provided a simple yet effective rebuttal to the same. This is the organisation I so happily am a subscriber of, will continue to be. Thank you for holding the fort. 

I am nursing an eye injury currently (already apologise for the word count and spelling errors), I am unable to listen to the complete article on the NL website. Sharing the screenshot and requesting support on the same.

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Orpita 

Hello, 

I sent two subscriber letters to Hafta. 

One on April 5, Abhinandan mentioned my name at end of Hafta episode, acknowledging the letter was received, will be read in first special Subscribers' Take episode). I heard the whole first Subscribers' Take episode. My letter was not read. 

Second letter I sent around June 15 (topic: Israel, US, India; producer Priyali responded to email, acknowledging it was received). I heard the whole second Subscribers' Take episode. My letter was not read. Did I miss hearing it on the episodes? Please confirm. 

I don't know if my opinions are good, important enough, whatever. If you are picking-choosing what to read, just let me know. I'll be ok with that. But you committed to read them all, when they are under 150 words, right? Why wasn't mine read out? Just a slip on your part? It's ok, forget about them then. Just tell me what, why please. 

My one letter to Awful & Awesome was promptly read and I had a good time communicating with the hosts through my letter. But both my letters to Hafta have not been read. 

We only read out letters from our subscribers because they’re the ones who power our work. You can too. Click here to subscribe.