Reporters Without Orders Ep 381: Loopholes in Bihar SIR, Assam’s 3000-bigha land row, right-wing targeting of journalists

This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry’s Sumedha Mittal and Pratyush Deep.

Sumedha talks about her report on Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Her investigation revealed that even after this massive exercise, the ECI has conferred wrong house numbers to lakhs of voters. This, she says, creates the perfect opportunity to fill the lacunae with fake voters. After the ECI’s SIR, over 1,000 voters in Bihar were grouped under a single non-existent house. Her investigation highlights that whatever mistakes were there in the electoral roll are still on the list even after the SIR.

Pratyush’s report highlighted Assam’s 3,000-bigha land row and the controversy around it. While the story played out on social media, with claims that the land was being handed over to the Adani Group, Pratyush’s report reveals that it is, in fact, Mahabal Cement that had ownership of the land.

In another report from Assam, Pratyush follows the complainants behind recent FIRs against journalists, who ostensibly had links to the BJP or the RSS student wing ABVP.

Tune in.

Timecodes

00:00:00 - Introduction

00:05:06 - Loopholes in SIR

00:23:30 - Illegal land allotment

00:33:54 - FIRs against Journalists

00:44:25 - Recommendations

Recommendations

Sumedha

EP-339 | Political Pressure, TRP War, Media Credibility & Influencers vs Journalists | Kalli Purie

Pratyush

The Rebel Army Behind One of the World’s Major Rare Earth Supplies

Basant

Saare Jahan Se Accha

Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.