Newslaundry Podcast

This week on Hafta, Manisha Pande and Raman Kirpal are joined by Anuradha Nagaraj, founder of The Migration Story, and Arghya Sengupta, Founder and Research Director at the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.  Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey with production assistance from Sourav and Abhay Kumar. Sound by Anil Kumar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, and Anand Vardhan are joined by Bashir Ali Abbas, Research Associate at Council for Strategic and Defence Research (CSDR) and Amit Kumar, executive editor of East Mojo.  Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey with production assistance from Sourav and Abhay Kumar. Sound by Anil Kumar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by senior journalist Sreenivasan Jain and Dhanya Rajendran, editor-in-chief of The News Minute. The panel dives into the high-stakes 2026 assembly elections across Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Puducherry. Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey with production assistance from Priyali Dhingra and Abhay Kumar. Sound by Anil Kumar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Manisha Pande are joined by The New York Times journalist Mujib Mashal and Aishwaria Sonavane, research analyst for Pakistan studies at the Takshashila Institution.Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey with production assistance from Priyali Dhingra and Abhay Kumar. Sound by Anil Kumar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by independent journalist Nidhi Suresh and Mridul Dudeja, a freelance technologist who has been engaged with queer-trans community spaces in Mumbai and across India for over 15 years. Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey with production assistance from Sourav Ranjan and Abhay Kumar. Sound by Anil Kumar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, Raman Kirpal and Anand Vardhan discuss three big themes: Nitish Kumar’s succession politics in Bihar, religion creeping into sport, and the ethics of euthanasia.Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey with production assistance from Saif Ekram and Abhay Kumar. Sound by Naresh. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri,  Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Shardool Katyayan are joined by AFP’s chief US correspondent Shaun Tandon and Aditya Ramanathan, research fellow at Takshila Institution. Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey with Production assistant by Saif Ekram. Sound by Anil Kumar  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Anand Vardhan are joined by academic and columnist Fahad Zuberi and Kallol Bhattacherjee, the foreign affairs editor of The Hindu.Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and subscriber letters.Produced by Amit Pandey & Priyali DhingraSound by Anil Kumar  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Shardool Katyayan are joined by Amba Kak, a tech policy expert and researcher, and Alex Travelli, the South Asia business correspondent for The New York Times.Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and subscriber letters.Produced by Ashish Anand & Amit Pandey. Sound by Anil Kumar  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, Raman Kirpal and Anand Vardhan are joined by filmmaker Sudhir Mishra and senior journalist Arati Jerath.Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and subscriber letters.Produced by Amit PandeyAssistant production by AshishSound design by Anil Kumar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by musician and author T.M. Krishna and defence analyst Ajai Shukla for a conversation that spans Parliament flashpoints, billionaire ownership in journalism, and the deeper cultural fight over India’s national symbols.The panel opens with a discussion around the furore in Parliament over former Army chief General M.M. Naravane’s yet-to-be-released memoir this week. Questioning Om Birla’s claim that the Opposition was planning an attack on PM Narendra Modi, Manisha says, “It’s fear-mongering… the same story as what prime time had done back when the Prime Minister got stuck in a traffic jam.”Ajai Shukla opines that the very fact that a former Army Chief’s account is stuck in clearance limbo shows how tightly the government controls uncomfortable narratives around national security and China.The discussion then transitions to the layoff purge at The Washington Post, which Jayashree describes as a symptom of

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam, and Anand Vardhan are joined by journalist Nikhil Inamdar and Sudipto Mondal, executive editor of The News Minute.Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey, with assistant production by Ashish ,Sound by Anil Kumar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande and Jayashree Arunachalam are joined by journalist and entrepreneur Govindraj Ethiraj. The discussion opens up with the recently concluded World Economic Forum held in Davos. Abhinandan sharply questions the performative nature of Indian participation at the forum, criticising chief ministers for announcing Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) with Indian companies on foreign soil. “We are funding the circus,” Jayashree remarks bluntly, calling Davos a “clown show” driven by optics rather than outcomes.Govindraj also agrees that announcing MoUs, especially with Indian firms, is a misallocation of time and attention, given how the WEF offers leaders “an opportunity to gauge the temperature of what is happening in the world order right now”.  The discussion also touches on the much-touted India-EU free trade agreement, which European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen described as the “mother of all deals”. Govindraj, howeve

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam and Anand Vardhan are joined by Chander Shekhar Luthra, a veteran sports journalist, and Suhasini Haidar, diplomatic affairs editor of The Hindu. Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey, with assistant production by Saurav Sound by Anil Kumar Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam and Raman Kirpal are joined by Ishaan Tharoor, a foreign affairs columnist at The Washington Post and Advocate Vrinda Grover. Check out previous Hafta recommendations, references, songs and letters.Produced by Amit Pandey, with assistant production by Ashish Anand. Sound by Anil Kumar  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Manisha Pande, Jayashree Arunachalam and Anand Vardhan are joined by Kallol Bhattacherjee, Senior Assistant Editor at The Hindu.Check out the Newslaundry store and flaunt your love for independent media. Download the Newslaundry app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For this special year-ender episode, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri and Manisha Pande and The News Minute’s Dhanya Rajendran and Pooja Prasanna are joined by columnist and media critic Santosh Desai.  The conversation begins with a wrap of the Indian media ecosystem this year. Santosh says, “Institutions are struggling to retain credibility and resist pressure.” Dhanya argues that mainstream media exerts significant influence over people, but on social media, the results vary. Discussing the state of the media more specifically in Karnataka, Pooja notes that although it's “heavily compromised”, it can still be seen as a “lesser evil” compared to the Hindi and English media.Manisha argues that, in terms of news consumption, the internet can be very ruthless – in contrast to legacy media, which does not have to face the crash and burn. She cites the example of Beer Biceps, whose rapid rise and fall illustrate this ruthlessness. Some influencers, Dhanya says, have also realised that “credibility comes

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Jayashree Arunachalam and Shardool Katyayan are joined by Development economist Reetika Khera & ESPN’s Anirudhh Menon. Check out the Newslaundry store and flaunt your love for independent media. Download the Newslaundry app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week on Hafta, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Jayashree Arunachalam and Anand Vardhan are joined by Dhanya Rajendran, editor-in-chief of The News Minute and Anupam Manur, professor at the Takshashila Institution. Check out the Newslaundry store and flaunt your love for independent media. Download the Newslaundry app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Newslaundry’s Manisha Pande, Shardool Katyayan and Raman Kirpal are joined by Medianama founder and editor Nikhil Pahwa and senior journalist Maya Mirchandani.Check out the Newslaundry store and flaunt your love for independent media. Download the Newslaundry app.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.