The Suno India Show: Recent Episodes
Suno India
The Suno India Show’ is a news show by Suno India combining slow journalism with under-represented and under-reported stories. Covering the diverse range of topics like politics, technology, education and society, the host brings in informative interviews and engaging discussions with experts. The show not only shines a spotlight on stories that matter but keeps the listeners up to date with the latest national news.
At least 33 people died in heatwave during the 2024 General Election's last phase in Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha. The people who died include polling officials.
The average heat related mortality has increased by 85% in 2013-22 as compared with 1991-2001. Excess heat can cause:
- Cardiac related illness
- Lung damage
- Kidney injury
- Adverse pregnancy outcome
- Mental health impact
But often these deaths are not recorded as heat-related deaths or are not accepted by the respective governments or local bodies.
The National Action Plan on Heat Related Illnesses, 2021 gave detailed guidelines on how to record a suspected heat-related illness death. Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released a document examining autopsy findings of those who died of heat-related illnesses. This is an attempt by the govt to standardise the approach of confirming such deaths.
We are replaying last year's episode. In this episode, Suno India's Sneha Richhariya visited a district hospital to understand the challenges of recording a heat-related death. I spoke to Dr. Abhishek Sharma, Emergency Medical Officer at Noida district hospital and Abhiyant Tiwari, lead climate resilience and health consultant at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
References
India heatwave kills at least 33, including election officials - The Economic Times
National Action plan on Heat Related llnesses.pdf
AUTOPSY FINDINGS HEAT RELATED DEATHS
Cause certified in just 22.5% of deaths registered in 2020 | India News
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Since the 2024 General Election results have been declared, questions have been raised about the way mainstream media had represented the Indian voters’ sentiment. We want to highlight the work of a media collective, ChalChitra Abhiyaan that works in Western Uttar Pradesh, and recorded people’s discontent about the government.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Nakul Singh Sawhney, a documentary filmmaker who made several films including the widely acclaimed Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai on the religious riots that broke out in UP’s Muzaffarnagar and Shamli districts in 2013. He is the founder of the film and media collective ChalChitra Abhiyaan based in West UP. It is a collective that trains youth from marginalised communities in filmmaking and media. His upcoming film is on the historic farmers movement called - A Million Churnings.
Nakul talks about how in large parts of Western UP where they report from, people have switched to consuming news on YouTube and how there is massive distrust towards the mainstream media.
References
https://chalchitraabhiyaan.com/
Trailer- A Million Churnings... || लाखों मंथन... || ਲੱਖਾਂ ਬਗਾਵਤਾਂ... - A CCA production
CCA - ChalChitra Abhiyaan - YouTube
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In April 2024, that is last month, Suno India published the story featuring Iliyas Marandi, a 23-year-old tribal man who lost his eyesight after taking miltefosine drug for Post-Kala-azar Dermal Leishmaniasis, a skin manifestation of the deadly Kala-azar. This May, he underwent a corneal implant surgery at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences. Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Iliyas after the surgery, and his doctor, Dr Rakhi Kusumesh. This is Iliyas’s second corneal implant.
In 2022, the World Health Organization stated that 83 cases in India had possible links to miltefosine intake. While the government issued guidelines in 2022 to prevent people from losing vision after taking miltefosine, there are no plans yet for those who lost eyesight before 2022. Iliyas is one such person. He has so far mostly sought medical help with his own money, and resources. Except for some Ayushman Bharat scheme’s insurance money, Iliyas was on his own for this corneal implant too.
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In this podcast episode, Suno India's Cofounder Rakesh speaks with Kaushik Shridhar, Founde & CEO, Orka Advisory and author of the book The Art of Winging It: What's the Worst That Could Happen?. He shares his journey from a professional tennis player to a career in sustainability. He discusses the inspiration behind his book and the lessons he has learned along the way. Kaushik emphasizes the importance of slowing down, appreciating life, and taking a positive approach to challenges. He also reflects on personal experiences, such as surviving a plane crash and overcoming bullying, and how they have shaped his perspective.
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This is the last episode in the series on Kala Azar reported by Suno India’s Menaka Rao.
The Indian government has said that it has hit the elimination target for Kala-azar, a parasitic disease that is life-threatening. But miltefosine, the drug used to treat the skin manifestation of Kala-azar, called Post-Kala-azar Dermal Leishmaniasis (PKDL), is being linked to eye problems, including blindness.
The government has taken steps to try to reduce the side effects in 2021, but not much has been done for those who have lost their eyesight either in one eye or both, possibly as a result of miltefosine. The World Health Organization has found 83 cases of people in India who have suffered a problem in the eye after intake of miltefosine.
In this episode, Menaka spoke to Iliyas Marandi, one of the patients who lost his eyesight completely after taking miltefosine treatment. She also spoke to ophthalmologists Dr Rakhi Kushumesh and Dr Asim Sil who treated such patients, and helped develop the guidelines to prevent such ocular side effects.
References
https://www.indiaspend.com/health/how-a-drug-to-treat-dermal-kala-azar-is-affecting-patients-eyesight-901497
Keratitis occurring in patients treated with miltefosine for post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis | British Journal of Ophthalmology
https://ncvbdc.mohfw.gov.in/WriteReadData/l892s/PKDL-Guidelines-220512.pdf
Using focused pharmacovigilance for ensuring patient safety against antileishmanial drugs in Bangladesh's National Kala-azar Elimination Programme
Keratitis After Post-Kala-Azar Dermal Leishmaniasis
Corneal complications following Post Kala-azar Dermal Leishmaniasis treatment | PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Adverse ocular events on miltefosine treatment for post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis in India - Suman Saurabh, Manish Mahabir, 2020
Advisory Committee on Safety of Medicinal Products (ACSoMP): Measures to minimize the risk of ocular adverse events with miltefosine
Statement on miltefosine - Potential ocular disorders in patients treated with miltefosine for post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis (PKDL).
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On March 20, 2024, the Bombay High Court convicted former police officer Pradeep Sharma in a 18-year-old “fake” encounter killing of Ramnarayan Gupta, who was allegedly from Chhota Rajan gang. Gupta was sentenced to life imprisonment. This is not the norm, but more of an exception.
Encounters are normalised in India. Recently, the UP police encountered a murder accused in Badaun district. The father of two boys who were murdered appealed to the police not to encounter the co-accused because they wanted some answers as to why the children were killed.
This is an episode from April last year when Sneha Richhariya spoke to Prakash Singh, ex-IPS Officer when the UP police killed alleged mafia don and politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother in the presence of media persons. Prakash Singh served as Director general of Police, Uttar Pradesh. He has also served in Assam and Border Security Force. Singh filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court seeking police reforms, in which a landmark verdict was delivered.He explained what does the systemic apathy about encounter killings mean for the society.
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In this episode, Suno India's Padma Priya talks to Dr. Abhishek Mangeshikar, a gynecologist specializing in endometriosis. He explains what endometriosis is and why it is difficult to diagnose.
Dr. Mangeshikar also addresses common myths surrounding endometriosis, such as the belief that pregnancy or menopause can cure the disease. He emphasizes the importance of patient advocacy and provides advice on how to push back against dismissive attitudes from medical professionals. Additionally, he discusses risk factors for endometriosis and the presence of silent symptoms, such as kidney damage.
In this conversation, Dr. Abhishek Mangeshikar discusses various aspects of endometriosis, including diagnosis, management, surgical considerations, psychological impact, and patient education. He emphasizes the importance of thorough imaging and the limitations of routine gynecological ultrasounds in diagnosing endometriosis. Dr. Mangeshikar explains that while hormonal treatments can provide relief from pain, they do not stop the growth of endometriosis. He also highlights the significance of choosing an experienced endometriosis surgeon and provides key questions to ask when considering surgery.
The conversation touches on the recurrence of endometriosis, the psychological impact of the disease, and the resources provided by Endometriosis India. Dr. Mangeshikar shares his approach to patient education through social media and emphasizes the need for action in improving the understanding and treatment of endometriosis.
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The inauguration of the Ram Mandir marks a significant chapter in India’s history. The temple's construction replaced the 16th-Century Babri masjid, which was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992, leading to nationwide riots and the tragic loss of nearly 2,000 lives, after the Supreme court allowed it.
In December 2023, reporter Shweta Desai travelled to Ayodhya before the temple’s inauguration on January 22, 2023. In this episode of the Suno India Show, Shweta talks to a community living just behind the newly constructed Ram Mandir and listens to the local communities, Hindus, Muslims, and the Bahujans who have lived around the disputed site for years as friends and experienced the communal fallout of one of the most polarising political campaigns of modern India.
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The Bharatiya Janata Party government has been pitching for One Nation One Election for years. The High Level Committee on One Nation, One Election submitted a report to President Droupadi Murmu on March 14, 2024. The 21-volume, 18,626-page report has suggestions from representatives of various political parties, economists, officials from the election commissions, businessmen, and other experts.
The report unanimously supports one election for Centre, state and local bodies such as panchayats and municipalities. We are republishing an older episode hosted by Suno India’s Rakesh Kamal where he interviewed Chakshu Roy to understand the complexities and challenges of holding simultaneous elections. Chakshu Roy heads the outreach team and leads the legislator and citizen engagement initiatives at PRS legislative research. He has been involved in setting up the state laws project, training civil society and journalist groups about tracking Parliament.
For additional reading:
PRS Summary of the Report
ANALYSIS OF SIMULTANEOUS ELECTIONS : THE “WHAT”, “WHY” AND “HOW”
Standing Committee Report on the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections.pdf (Dec 2015)
Law commission report (1999) on electoral reforms.pdf
https://onoe.gov.in/HLC-Report
The Suno India Show | Can ‘one nation, one election’ work for India
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On March 11, 2024 a few months before the Lok Sabha Elections the central government notified the Citizenship (Amendment) Rules. This has come approximately four years after the Parliament passed the Citizenship (Amendment) Act in 2019. As per the amendment, the government can grant citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Parsis, Jains, or Christians from Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan on or before December 31,2014.. conspicuously leaving out Muslims. It was passed amid nation-wide protests as linking citizenship to religion goes against the secular nature of the constitution.
The bigger fear is about a nationwide National Register of Citizens or NRC. Assam is the only place with NRC.
At the time of passing the Act, the Home Minister, Amit Shah told Parliament that a nationwide NRC is on the cards. However, in a blogpost, press information bureau at the time clarified repeatedly that no announcement has been made to begin NRC exercise.
Now with the rules being released, nationwide implementation of the Act will begin. In 2019, the United Nations Human Rights Office issued a statement condemning the “fundamentally discriminatory” Citizenship Amendment Act. At the time in 2019, Suno India’s Padmapriya had spoken to Pia Oberoi, senior advisor on migration, UN Human Rights Office to understand their concerns around the Citizenship Amendment Act. We are republishing it as it continues to be relevant today.
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मुस्कान भोपाल की रहने वाली एक दलित ट्रांसजेंडर महिला हैं जो सामाजिक हाशिये पर रहने के बीच स्वीकार्यता और अपनेपन की खोज का सफर साझा करती है। खून के रिश्तो से परे जाकर मुस्कान अपने चुनिंदा परिवार की कहानी बताती हैं जिसके साथ वह दुःख, प्यार और ट्रांसजेंडर होने की चुनौतियों व पहचान की जटिलता के बारे में जानती हैं. अपने जन्म वाले परिवार के द्वारा अस्वीकारे जाने से लेकर LGBTQ+ समुदाय और सहयोगियों जैसे सुरय्या दादी में सांत्वना और सहारा पाने तक- मुस्कान की कहानी स्वीकार्यता और समझ की ओर अपना खुद का रास्ता बनाने के लिए आवश्यक सहनशीलता और साहस को उजागर करती है। यह चुने हुए परिवारों की शक्ति और हर किसी को उसके सच्चे रूप में महसूस करने वाले और प्यार करने वाले स्थानों की रचना की महत्वकांक्षा का एक साक्षी है। मुस्कान एकतारा कलेक्टिव द्वारा निर्मित फिल्म “एक जगह अपनी” में काम कर चुकी हैं.
सेजल पटेल इस स्टोरी के लिए मुस्कान से मिलने भोपाल गए। यह एपिसोड Queerbeat के साथ कोलैबोरेशन में निर्मित किया गया है।
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In 2013, Indian law codified workplace protection for working women, both in the formal and informal sectors under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) (POSH) Act.
A report of Human Rights Watch says that India has failed 94 % of its women who work in the informal sector - this includes women who work as domestic help, sweepers, construction workers and so on.
Suno India’s Sneha Richhariya spoke to domestic workers, Local committee members, lawyers and civil society organisations to understand how the law has played out for working women in the informal sector.
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On 28th February 2024, Wakeel Hassan, Uttarakhand Tunnel rescue hero once again made headlines when his house was razed by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA). The demolition of Hassan’s house was the most recent in the spate of evictions across the country. There have been questions over why the government disproportionately targets working-class and minority community people such as Wakeel Hassan.
Here is an extended cut of an interview with Dr. Ghazala Jamil from an episode of the Suno India Show where Suno India’s Menaka Rao reported on the aftermath of the April 2022 Jahangirpuri riot followed by a demolition drive. Ghazala is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
In this episode, hosted by Suno India’s Sneha Richhariya, Ghazala explains what makes an illegal structure in a city and what makes some illegal structures more illegal than others.
References:
Uttarakhand tunnel rescue hero's home demolished in Delhi; Declines DDA's temporary accommodation offer
MP demolition drive: Authorities face charges of doing away with due processMCD to beautify city, remove encroachment from February 6 ahead of G20 summit
Mehrauli demolition: Survey DDA relied on was found incomplete by HC panel last year
Olga Tellis & Ors vs Bombay Municipal Corporation & Ors. Etc on 10 July, 1985
THE PUBLIC PREMISES (EVICTION OF UNAUTHORISED OCCUPANTS) ACT, 1971
Thousands Traumatised In New Delhi: As Law Is Ignored, Homes & Lives Are Torn Apart For G20 Summit
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Even as the MPs were suspended, in December 2023, the Parliament passed laws completely upending the major criminal laws of our country. What does this mean in a democracy?
On 30th January 2024, Maansi Verma, a lawyer and public policy researcher, posted a thread on the platform ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) about the ‘wrongs’ committed by the government during its term. The list of ‘wrongs’ mentioned in this thread is glaring enough to make any concerned citizen worry.
Suno India’s Sneha Richhariya spoke to Maansi Verma, who is also the founder of “Maadhyam”- which is a civic engagement initiative working to bring Parliament and policy-making closer to people.
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In this episode of The Suno India Show shorts, we talk about the live-in relationships as defined under Uttarakhand’s Uniform Civil Code Bill that was passed on February 7, 2024. Suno India’s Menaka Rao and Sneha Richhariya discuss the law threadbare and why it should matter to everyone in India.
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In this episode, we discuss the Supreme Court’s verdict on electoral bonds, a scheme that allowed anonymous donations to political parties. We explain why the court ruled it unconstitutional and what it means for Indian democracy.
We are republishing a part of our episode from our show “Every Voice Matters'' which was originally published in 2019. The host and Suno-India editor Padma Priya then spoke to General Anil Verma of the Association of Democratic Reforms on this contentious topic. The second part of the episode talks about electoral bonds. This is his take;
Also listen: Electoral bonds controversy – RTI documents reveal the lies
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Even though Kala-azar is closer to elimination in the country, questions related to how the disease spreads still remain unanswered. Only recently, scientists in India and Bangladesh have understood the dynamics of how Post kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis or PKDL, the skin manifestation of the disease, spreads kala-azar. For the third podcast in the series on kala-azar, Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Dr Rahul Chaubey, entomologist at Kala-azar Medical Research Centre, Muzaffarpur to understand the latest in vector research.
Reporting for this story was supported by the MSF-DNDi Grant on Neglected Tropical Diseases as part of the Without Borders Media Fellowship. The fellowship encourages independent, impartial and neutral reporting on health and humanitarian crises.
References
Transmission Dynamics of Visceral Leishmaniasis in the Indian Subcontinent – A Systematic Literature Review - PMC
Livestock and rodents within an endemic focus of Visceral Leishmaniasis are not reservoir hosts for Leishmania donovani | PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
Establishing, Expanding, and Certifying a Closed Colony of Phlebotomus argentipes (Diptera: Psychodidae) for Xenodiagnostic Studies at the Kala Azar Medical Research Center, Muzaffarpur, Bihar, India - PMC
On a Herpetomonas Found in the Gut of the Sandfly, Phlebotomus Argentipes, Fed On Kala-Azar Patients - PMC
Ten years of kala-azar in west Bengal, Part I. Did post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis initiate the outbreak in 24-Parganas? - PMC
Bionomics of Phlebotomus argentipes in villages in Bihar, India with insights into efficacy of IRS-based control measures | PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases
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Kala Azar was a public health problem in India till recently. In 2023, the disease is close to the elimination target set up by the World Health Organisation. As per the WHO target, there should be less than one case per 10,000 population at block level. In this second podcast in a series on Kala Azar, Suno India’s Menaka Rao reports on the key contributions of various stakeholders and policies. She spoke to Dr Shyam Sundar, who runs the Kala Azar Medical Research Centre, in Muzaffarpur, Dr Krishna Pandey, Director of Rajendra Memorial Research Institute of Medical Sciences in Patna, and Rakesh Kumar, Bihar state in-charge for Kala Azar.
Reporting for this story was supported by the MSF-DNDi Grant on Neglected Tropical Diseases as part of the Without Borders Media Fellowship. The fellowship encourages independent, impartial and neutral reporting on health and humanitarian crises.
References
Kala-azar in India – progress and challenges towards its elimination as a public health problem
History of Kala-Azar in India - PMC
Miltefosine in the treatment of leishmaniasis: Clinical evidence for informed clinical risk management
Elimination programme for kala-azar in India and Bihar during the last century - ignoring the obvious.
An E-mail interview with Prof. Shyam Sundar - PMC
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa021556
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa0903627
Safety and efficacy of short course combination regimens with AmBisome, miltefosine and paromomycin for the treatment of visceral leishmaniasis (VL) in Bangladesh - PMC
https://scroll.in/pulse/819854/india-has-been-talking-about-defeating-kala-azar-since-1947-and-now-has-a-good-chance-of-doing-so
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This was a very sombre Republic Day, coming in a few days after the inauguration of the Ram Mandir in Ayodhya on January 22, 2024, churning up questions on the secular nature of our country. The inauguration of the Ram Mandir marks a significant chapter in our country’s history. The temple's construction replaced the 16th-Century Babri masjid, which was demolished by Hindu mobs in 1992, leading to nationwide riots and the tragic loss of nearly 2,000 lives, after the Supreme court allowed it. This became a national event, even though we have a sizable population of Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, among others.
Suno India’s Sneha Richhariya and Menaka Rao took interviews of young persons in their 20s, all of who were born after the Babri Masjid demolition. We attempt to understand what they think about this national event, what it symbolises, and how they understand secularism.
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Kala Azar, a deadly parasitic disease, is very close to elimination in India. As per the World Health Organisation, the definition of elimination is the annual incidence of less than one case per 10,000 population at block level. The last few districts which are on the borderline remain in Jharkhand, and public officials appear confident that this year, the country may achieve the elimination target. The target has to be kept for 3 years for it to receive a WHO tag.
Suno India is publishing a series of podcasts related to Kala Azar elimination. Suno India’s Menaka Rao travelled to Jharkhand and Bihar for the reporting of these podcasts. Reporting for this story was supported by the MSF-DNDi Grant on Neglected Tropical Diseases as part of the Without Borders Media Fellowship. The fellowship encourages independent, impartial and neutral reporting on health and humanitarian crises.
In the first episode of this mini-series, Suno India’s consulting editor Menaka Rao talks about the challenges of another complication related to kala-azar called Post Kala-azar Dermal Leishmaniasis. This can manifest in about 5-10% of patients who recovered from kala-azar. This disease is now scientifically proven to spread kala-azar in the community. This disease is hard to detect, and cure. Menaka speaks to persons affected by this disease, and other health workers who are trying hard to control it in the community.
References
Kala-azar in India – progress and challenges towards its elimination as a public health problem
KALA-AZAR SITUATION IN INDIA
Kala Azar and its subsequent skin manifestation, PKDL, shattered these women's lives, left them with uncertainty, stigma
Xenodiagnosis to evaluate the infectiousness of humans to sandflies in an area endemic for visceral leishmaniasis in Bihar, India: a transmission-dynamics study
Ten years of kala-azar in west Bengal, Part I. Did post-kala-azar dermal leishmaniasis initiate the outbreak in 24-Parganas? - PMC
DNDi’s Centres of Excellence: Towards the sustainable elimination of visceral leishmaniasis in India
Safety and Effectiveness of Miltefosine in Post–Kala-Azar Dermal Leishmaniasis: An Observational Study - PMC
Kala Azar and its subsequent skin manifestation, PKDL, shattered these women's lives, left them with uncertainty, stigma
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On November 21, Pranshu who is a 16-year old queer child, died of suicide in Ujjain. The school going child was a self taught makeup artist, with nearly 17,000 followers on Instagram. Pranshu posted a reel dressed in a sari, which went viral during Diwali, getting more than 4000 comments, most of which were homophobic in nature.
Last year, another class 10 student, Aarvey Malhotra died of suicide. His mother, Aarti Malhotra has alleged that Aarvey was bullied mercilessly in school on account of his sexuality, and that his school authorities were not responsive to their complaints and failed to protect him.
In the recent past, there have been many conversations about protection of children in the social media space. Whistleblowers of Meta have alleged that Meta knew its products were harming children, particularly young girls but did not do enough to protect them. In October, many US states filed a lawsuit arguing that Meta has contributed to a youth mental health crisis. What is missing in these discussions are the experiences of queer children.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Rohin Bhatt, a queer rights lawyer and activist and a bioethicist to understand what kind of legal and policy framework can help protect queer children, but also help create a safe space online.
References
'My Child Did Nothing Wrong,' Mother of Queer Artist Who Died By Suicide in MP
“The school has killed me”: Arvey Malhotra’s mother recalls his suicide note and elaborates on the bullying that led to her son’s death; awaits justice even after 4 months - Times of India
Congress Is Pushing An Online Safety Bill Supported By Anti-LGBTQ Groups
https://twitter.com/BhattRohin/status/1729734070261658026/photo/1
Yes, We Exist (@yesweexistindia) • Instagram photos and videos
Filmmaker Onir says his movie script on gay soldier has been rejected by defence ministry: 'I won't demean anybody'.
National and Delhi Commissions for Protection of Child Rights on opposing sides on adoption by same-sex couples – The Leaflet
Kerala HC asks government to take appropriate action against ‘NGO’ that calls queerness “wokeism” and “rainbow mafia” – The Leaflet
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The Silkyara tunnel, in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district, has been in the news since November 12, when one of its under-construction sections collapsed, trapping 41 workers. After the rescue of these workers, this entire episode has been portrayed as a story of triumph.
But, why exactly did the tunnel at Silkyara collapse? The 4.53-kilometre-long tunnel between Silkyara and Barkot is part of the larger Char Dham project. What does the Silkyara collapse tell us about the Char Dham Project in the central Himalayas?
In this episode of the Suno India Show, reporter Sneha Richhariya speaks to Himanshu Arora, Anish Nal, Jaya Singh, Ira Chauhan and Ruchi Singh Rao, all members of Citizens For Green Doon- a Dehradun-based civil society group, which along with others have fought a case in Supreme Court against the Char Dham project and the rampant construction under it.
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This December we mark 11 years of the gang rape and death of Jyoti Singh – or Nirbhaya. As a response to the Delhi 2012 incident, the government started the Nirbhaya Fund and Nirbhaya centres across the country. In this episode, we look at what women want versus what they get.
Today, there are over 733 Nirbhaya Centres–or One-Stop Crisis Centres–across India; one in every district. However, these centres rarely function as hospital-based crisis centres i.e., they often operate in parallel with the police rather than in coordination with the hospitals. Experts say this is a missed opportunity, as hospitals–not the police–are the first point of contact for survivors. Hospitals are safe spaces and women are more likely to reach out for help here.
In this episode, Mahima Jain visits the One-Stop Crisis Center inside the District Women’s Hospital in Akola, Maharashtra. This centre has used it's position as an opportunity to help violence survivors. With the help of its (now former) Medical Superintendent Dr Arati Kulwal, this Nirbhaya Center works with the hospital staff to identify survivors and help them. The hospital staff too was trained to identify signs and symptoms of gender-based violence. Is it time to relook how Nirbhaya Centers function? Let’s listen to how Akola’s One-Stop Crisis Center works, and the lessons all Nirbhaya Centres can learn from it.
Global database India on violence against women
Crime in India – 2021 - SNAPSHOTS (States/UTs)
Reporting, script, and narration: Mahima Jain
Editing: Menaka Rao
Production: Rakesh Kamal
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
Read other stories from the Pulitzer Center project here: India’s Health Care Response to Gender-Based Violence
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After an exhaustive 400-hour operation, a collective sigh of relief swept through the nation as rescuers successfully reached the 41 workers who had been trapped in the Uttarkashi tunnel since November 12.
The Char Dham National Highway Project, launched in December 2016, aimed to improve connectivity to the pilgrimage sites of Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamunotri, and Gangotri—all nestled in the Himalayas. This Rs.12,000 crore project spans approximately 889 kilometres through the Himalayan region. Despite its lofty goals, the project exposes critical errors and assumptions in its planning and execution.
The collapse of the Silkyara tunnel, while significant, is not an isolated incident but rather a part of a larger tragedy in the making.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Sneha Richhariya speaks to Suresh Bhai, a native of Uttarakhand residing just 30 km from the Silkyara tunnel. He has been advocating for the sensitivity of the Himalayas for decades.
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In this episode, three MTEs talk about their training, their lives before they took on the role, the state of science education in India, and societal perceptions about blindness. Most importantly, they reflect on what they contribute to society and how training as an MTE has altered their lives. Listen to Meenakshi Gupta, Neha Suri and Neetu Garg who work as MTEs in Delhi and Gurgaon. Also featuring Ashwini Rao, a Discovering Hands trainer from Enable India, Bengaluru.
This mini-series has been reported by Priti Salian and the project was funded by the European Journalism Centre, through the Global Health Security Call. This programme is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Transcript: Hands that see - Blind and visually impaired women are emerging as a workforce in early breast cancer detection part 2.pdf
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In 2005, German gynaecologist Dr Frank Hoffmann, started his quest for a suitable medical assistant to conduct clinical breast exams for his clinic in Duisburg in Germany. By 2010, he had set up a social enterprise called Discovering Hands that trains blind and visually impaired women to conduct specialised routine breast examinations called tactile breast examinations. Today, Discovering Hands is spread across Germany, Switzerland, Austria and India, training blind and visually impaired women for the role of Medical Tactile Examiners (MTEs) who can offer accurate breast cancer screening with their highly sensitive and trained touch. The first episode in this two-part podcast series is about the problems associated with breast cancer in India and the solution MTEs offer.
In the episode, hear from Dr. Frank Hoffmann, Meenakshi Gupta, Sonal Prakash, Dr. Mandeep Malhotra, Dr. Kanchan Kaur, Dr. Lily Gutnik, Dr Poovamma CU, Shanti Raghavan, Dr. Vrutika Patel, Asha Sharma and Shashi Menon.
This mini-serires has been reported by Priti Salian and the project was funded by the European Journalism Centre, through the Global Health Security Call. This programme is supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Transcript: Blind and visually impaired women are emerging as a workforce in early breast cancer detection part 1.pdf
References
NAB India Centre for Blind Women & Disability Studies
The burden of cancers and their variations across the states of India: the Global Burden of Disease Study 1990–2016 - The Lancet Oncology
Breast cancer in India: Present scenario and the challenges ahead - PMC
https://journals.lww.com/jfmpc/Fulltext/2022/11000/Status_of_cancer_screening_in_India__An_alarm.106.aspx
Survival Analysis of Breast Cancer Patients Treated at a Tertiary Care Centre in Southern India - ScienceDirect
Breast cancer in India: Present scenario and the challenges ahead - PMC
Status of cancer screening in India: An alarm signal from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5)
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The alarming situation in Gaza has now entered its fourth week leaving over 8000 Palestinians dead, of which 3000 are estimated to be children. The harrowing situation began on October 7th when an attack by the armed rebel group Hamas which launched an unprecedented attack on Israel left nearly 1400 Israelis dead and many hundreds taken hostage.
On 27th October, The United Nations General Assembly adopted a major resolution on the Gaza crisis, calling for an “immediate, durable and sustained humanitarian truce leading to a cessation of hostilities.” Despite the non-binding UN resolution, Israel continued and stepped up its bombardment on Gaza. On Saturday, October 28th, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Israel had entered the second stage of the war with Hamas, saying ground forces had gone into what he called "that stronghold of evil" - describing Gaza - to "dismantle" Hamas and bring hostages home. He also said this will be a long and hard war.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, we will hear about the situation on the Gaza Strip, how the violence is leaving aid workers stretched, doctors unable to help sufficiently and the unfolding humanitarian crisis. Suno India’s Editor-in-chief Padma Priya spoke to Farhat Mantoo, Executive Director, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) South Asia on the situation in Gaza. MSF has been calling for an immediate ceasefire to stop the bloodshed.
Additional reading:
https://msfsouthasia.org/msf-immediate-ceasefire-is-needed-in-gaza-to-stop-the-bloodshed/
https://www.unfpa.org/crisis-gaza#:~:text=The%20humanitarian%20crisis%20in%20Gaza,access%20to%20reproductive%20health%20services.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwZ0l2lzjJg
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In a country as diverse and culturally rich as India, discussions around sexuality and sexual health often remain shrouded in silence. This lack of open dialogue has led to a myriad of problems, from high rates of teenage pregnancies to the spread of sexually transmitted infections. Sex education isn't just about teaching anatomy or discussing contraception. It's about empowering young people with the knowledge to make informed decisions about their bodies, relationships, and personal boundaries.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, Suno India’s Editor-In-Chief, DVL Padma Priya has a conversation with two young adults Aiswarya, a lawyer turned entrepreneur & Sudhanshu, a part-time podcaster & full-time corporate professional about how they navigate the world of sex, where they access sex-positive information and what the biggest barrier they are facing is, about sex education and more.
This episode is part of ‘The Talk’, a series of stories, each produced by a different newsroom or team, painting a picture of the state of sex education around the world. During the month of October 2023, stories will be published by CNN As Equals, Kontinentalist, the Impact Newsletter, Unbias the News, Nadja Media, Suno India and BehanBox
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On October 16, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court rejected the abortion plea of a 27-year-old mother of two boys. She moved the court as she was suffering from postpartum psychosis after her second child. She was more than 6 months pregnant, and had crossed the 24-week barrier that is prescribed in the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act.
This case is significant because a two-judge bench had given an order permitting the abortion. But the case flipped after a doctor from All India Institute of Medical Sciences doctor raised clarifications with the bench seeking a specific directive to stop the foetal heart. The case then resulted in a split verdict, going to a higher three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice DY Chandrachud. The higher bench denied the abortion plea, and asked her to deliver the child at AIIMS. The court even said that they can give up the child for adoption if they wish to.
Suno India’s consulting editor Menaka Rao spoke to this woman’s lawyer, Amit Mishra. He talks about her journey through this case, and a few other women he represented and says that women have a hard time getting abortion in the country if the pregnancy advances beyond 20 weeks.
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On October 3, 2023, the Delhi police arrested the founder and editor-in-chief of Newsclick Prabir Purkayastha, and the Human resources head, Amit Chakraborty -under the stringent anti-terror law Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act). The same day it raided the homes and offices of 46 people including reporters, columnists and commentators associated with the news portal and seized their laptops, phones and other devices for further examination.
In a letter to the Chief Justice of India, DY Chandrachud at least 18 press bodies have expressed alarm over the impingement of press freedom and spoken about the need to urgently issue guidelines related to search and seizure of personal digital devices drawing attention to the matter pending in the Supreme Court. Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks with Prasanna S, who has filed the 2021 PIL for academics Ram Ramaswamy, Sujata Patel, Madhav Prasad, Mukul Kesavan, and Deepak Malghan seeking guidelines for the seizure of electronic documents.
Additional Resources:
Delhi Police arrest NewsClick founder, HR head in alleged terror case - The Hindu
FIR links NewsClick case to legal aid for Chinese companies - The Hindu
NewsClick raids: Young staffers and part-time employees to freelancers – no one spared
NewsClick Raids: Can journalists be compelled to share passwords and hand over electronic devices? | Explained - The Hindu
In NewsClick FIR, ‘false narrative’ on Govt, ‘paid news’ fall in terror ambit | India News - The Indian Express
NewsClick Case: Pressing Questions on Delhi Police's Powers To Search and Seize | OPINION
Hackers Planted Files to Frame Indian Priest Who Died in Custody | WIRED
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The Union cabinet has approved the Women’s Reservation Bill 2008 to provide reservations for women in Parliament and state assemblies. Attempts to create a quota for women have been ongoing since the mid-1990s.Since then, the Women's Reservation Bill has witnessed a long journey in the Parliament. Now, as this bill is passed, India stands facing chances of foreseeable changes in its political landscape. But what challenges have the women been facing in political representation in India over the years? How can the Women's Reservation Bill impact the participation of women in Indian politics? What is the debate over delay, delimitation and intersectionality?
In this episode, host Sneha Richhariya speaks to Kanksshi Agarwal, the Founder of NETRI Foundation- which is an aggregator for women in the political ecosystem. NETRI is building opportunities and resources for people aspiring to join politics in India.
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The goal of imprisonment is reformation and reintegration within society. From the 50s, prisoners were not seen as individuals with rights and there was barely any focus on their well-being and health, let alone vocational guidance or life skills.
In 1993, when Kiran Bedi took over as Inspector General of Tihar Jail in Delhi and transformed it by introducing education, mediation, vocational training, medical aid, improved diet and living conditions. She won the Magsaysay Award in 1994. She established the India Vision Foundation in 1994 after she was conferred the award. The Foundation has various programmes for prisoners- both former and current- on rehabilitation and integration with society, as well as a programme that works with vulnerable children of incarcerated families. Suno India's Menaka Rao interviewed Dr Bedi during the Foundation’s 29th-year celebrations. Dr Bedi spoke about how she understands prison reforms, and how reform can actually help in crime control
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The Central government recently suspended Professor KS James, the director of the International Institute of Population Studies, that works with the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to conduct important studies such as National Family Health Survey, Global Adult Tobacco Survey among others. The government cited irregularities in recruitment as the reason for suspension, as academics came out in support of him. The opposition parties claim that this suspension reflects the government’s uneasy relationship with data-based evidence.
In 2019, PC Mohanan from the National Statistical Commission quit saying that one of the reasons was the late release of unemployment data measured under the National Sample Survey Office NSSO. The data that was officially released after the election results showed that joblessness was up to 6.1% in the country then, the highest it had been for 45 years. The government has recently also rejected the data released by the World Health Organisation related to excess deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020-2021.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks with Dr Aashish Gupta, a demographer and a sociologist. His research looks at the interrelations between health, environment, and inequality in developing countries. He has been published extensively on various subjects including Covid-19 related mortality, life expectancy, open defecation in relation to gender, and caste among other variables.
References
'Unhappy With Data Sets,' Modi Govt Suspends Director of Institute Which Prepares NFHS
Scientists, Opposition slam Centre over IIPS Director’s suspension - The Hindu
Was sidelined, govt not releasing job figures, says National Statistics Commission chief PC Mohanan on why he quit - India Today
Unemployment rate at 45-year high, confirms Labour Ministry data - The Hindu
Global Hunger Index attempt to tarnish India’s image: Centre - The Hindu.
Reversing the Gaze - Re-examining Estimates of India's Development Indicators by International Organisations
Shamika Ravi writes: Statisticians can be wrong | The Indian Express
Shamika Ravi is wrong. It is unfair to blame survey methodology when results disagree with a view point | The Indian Express
Why is anaemia being dropped from National Family Health Survey?
Centre defends National Family Health Survey-6 questionnaire, says disability data won’t change fast - The Hindu
Govt initiates moves to set 'Indian' standards for stunting in children | India News
Growth reference charts and the nutritional status of Indian children
(PDF) Are Children in West Bengal Shorter Than Children in Bangladesh?
Delayed NFHS derails health monitoring - The Hindu
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Welcome to the third episode of "Chinatown Fading," an engaging mini-series where reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee continues her exploration of Kolkata's dwindling Chinese-Indian community. In this episode, she delves into the captivating world of cultural preservation through the eyes of martial arts and lion dance teacher, James Liao.
Join in as we uncover the remarkable art of lion dancing, a cherished tradition that stands as a testament to the resilience of the community. Through the vibrant anecdotes shared by James Liao, we traverse the steps of this ancient dance form, known as much for its dynamic movements as for its symbolic significance.
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"Chinatown Fading" is a captivating mini-series where our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee delves into the vanishing stories of Kolkata's Chinese-Indian community. In the second episode of “Chinatown Fading,” she embarks on a culinary exploration that goes beyond flavours.
The episode traverses the evolving landscape of Chinese-Indian cuisine, witnessing its widespread popularity across the nation. From vibrant street stalls to upscale restaurants, the allure of Indo-Chinese dishes has swept India. However, within this culinary triumph lies a poignant narrative—the fading essence of authentic Chinese cuisine, lovingly preserved by the dwindling immigrant community. Join in as we unravel the tale of Chinese food—a journey of cultural fusion and preservation.
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"Chinatown Fading," is an enchanting mini-series that unravels the forgotten stories of the Chinese-Indian community in the heart of Kolkata. It delves deep into the alleys of history, guided by the poignant tales of those who remain. Join our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee on a journey through time.
In the first episode, Surya's conversation with Lawrence Ho, a resident of Tiretti Bazaar, guides us through the Old Chinatown's historic streets. The fading clubs, once vibrant with life, now echo with memories. These clubs, resembling temples and churches, embody the community's unity during times of adversity, like the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War. To know more on how amidst towering temples and quiet churches, the Chinese-Indian diaspora found solace and how the community built resilience and strength, join in.
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In this episode, we delve into the recent events surrounding the internet shutdown in Manipur, India, which lasted a staggering 83 days, raising critical questions about the impact of such measures on law and order. On Tuesday, July 25th, 2023, the Manipur government finally issued a conditional order lifting the internet ban, but with significant restrictions.
Initially enforced on May 3rd for a mere 5 days, the ban's extension was repeatedly justified by the government citing law and order concerns. However, the recent national outcry over a viral video of two Kuki women being sexually assaulted brought to fore discussions if internet shutdowns truly help stop violence; While there is a partial restoration of broadband services, mobile internet services continue to remain suspended.
Internet shutdowns in India have gained worldwide notoriety for their arbitrary nature of imposition. To better understand the implications of this conditional restoration and the broader context of internet shutdowns, Suno India Editor-in-Chief Padma Priya reached out to conversation Radhika Jhalani, a volunteer legal counsel associated with the Software Freedom Law Centre India (SFLC) one of India’s oldest digital rights organizations. SFLC maintains the Internet Shutdowns Tracker, providing real-time data and documentation of shutdown instances across the country.
In this episode, we explore the effectiveness of internet shutdowns in maintaining law and order, the significance of the imposed conditions, and the impact on freedom of speech and internet liberties in Manipur and beyond.
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To all the questions on deforestation for development projects, the Central government’s repetitive response has been compensatory afforestation. Land in the Yamuna floodplains has been used for compensatory plantation. If the ecological premise of the government's restoration projects rest much on compensatory afforestation, are there enough studies to show whether the floodplains are the best place for afforestation? Are floodplains meant to be turned into forests? Do they not have an ecology of their own that is valuable? And what happens to the existing ecosystem? Does this initiative help them? What would that do to the river that flows through the floodplains and sometimes spills out of its banks? Most importantly, what if the river overflows, as we saw in the past week?
In this episode, reporter Sneha Richhariya visited the compensatory afforestation sites along the Yamuna floodplains and met the plantation labourers. She spoke to Pramod Kumar, District Forest Officer (DFO), Noida and Faiyaz Khudsar, who is a scientist in the Biodiversity Parks Programme of Centre for Environment Management of Degraded Ecosystems (CEMDE), University of Delhi.
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In this episode of The Suno India Show, join Suno India's Editor-In-Chief Padma Priya as she delves into the alarming decline of press freedom in India, highlighted by the recent World Press Freedom Report. Ranking 161st among 180 countries, India's safety of journalists category hit a staggering low at 172. Padma engages in an insightful discussion with Joel Simon, a senior American journalist, press freedom activist, and Founding director of Journalism Protection Initiative, Newmark Journalism School to explore the evolving role of journalists in today's society. Discover what it means to be a journalist in this era, the crucial role of news consumers, and the pressing challenges faced by the media industry globally.
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In the middle of June this year, temperatures in several parts of Uttar Pradesh had ranged between 42C and 47C during mid-June. The media reported that in Ballia and Deoria districts of Uttar Pradesh, 119 people have died from ‘heat-related ailments’. But what exactly is meant by ‘heat-related ailment’? How are heat wave deaths actually reported? How does the doctor medically certify a heat wave death? How are heatwave deaths certified if existing comorbidity is severed by heat, leading to death?
In this episode, reporter Sneha Richhariya seeks answers to all such questions. She visits a district hospital and speaks to Dr. Abhishek Sharma, Emergency Medical Officer at Noida district hospital and Abhiyant Tiwari, Lead climate resilience and health consultant at Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
Additional material
Cause certified in just 22.5% of deaths registered in 2020 | India News
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In May, a wave of violence engulfed Manipur, leading to the displacement of thousands and severely disrupting the education of countless young individuals in the region. To delve into this critical issue, Suno India co-founder Rakesh Kamal spoke with Dennis Lallienzuol Hmar, an indigenous development professional, distinguished climate leader, and a survivor of conflict. In this discussion, he shared his own experiences, shedding light on the challenges faced by the youth whose hopes and dreams are now uncertain and hanging in the balance.
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With over 115 lives lost and 40,000 people displaced, the violence in Manipur still does not show signs of abating. Against the backdrop of escalating violence and communal clashes, Khwairambam Ema Keithal Joint Coordinating Committee for Peace, a Metei women-led group, strongly condemned the central government's inaction in Manipur.
In this episode, Sneha Richhariya speaks to a representative of the committee at the Press Club of India in New Delhi. The Metei group questions Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s silence on Manipur violence. The episode discusses the demands and apprehensions of the Metei community.
Additional material and references
Suno India | Dispatches from Manipur
At Least Nine People Killed Overnight as Manipur Violence Continues
Manipur High Court orders State to provide limited internet service in designated areas
The demand for a Kuki homeland, its history and rationale | Explained News,The Indian Express
Manipur violence: 23 BJP, NPP MLAs meet Union Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, demands withdrawal of SoO
Stop violence or face consequences: Manipur CM N Biren Singh warns people | Imphal News - Times of India.
Kuki groups in Manipur deny violation of ground rules under Suspension of Operations pact - The Hindu
Manipur violence: Almost all arms of Kuki militants still intact in camps, says army
Security forces look at buffer zones on fringes of Imphal valley to check mobs | India News,The Indian Express
Manipur: Khamenlok area chiefs 'call bluff' on reports of violence against Meiteis
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Earlier this week, news broke that the CoWin App, an app indigenously developed during the pandemic to track immunisation & issue vaccine certificates was breached. A telegram account was showing the personal details of many people including senior members of the parliament. The alleged leak is said to impact more than 100 core individuals who have secured vaccinations after signing up through the CoWIN portal. This includes more than 4 crore children between the age of 12-14 and over 37 crore people over the age of 45, a significant part of which could be senior citizens.
In this episode, Suno India's Editor-In-Chief, Padma Priya spoke with Srinivas Kodali, a digital rights expert on what this leak means for us & why it is important for us to pay attention to similar data breaches.
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This episode is the first episode of our new podcast "Dispatches from Manipur". Join us as independent journalist Greeshma Kuthar reports on the ongoing ethnic violence that has gripped the northeastern state of Manipur since May 2023.
In This episode, Greeshma brings a first-hand account of a teacher and headmistress of the only school in her village in Manipur. She recounts how she rescued herself as well as her students and residents from her village in the first week of May 2023. We will be keeping her identity anonymous and have changed her voice to protect her from any repercussions.
You can listen to all the episodes by subscribing to "Dispatches from Manipur" on the Suno India App
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Manipur has witnessed month-long communal clashes following the dominant Meiti community's demand for Scheduled Tribe status. The clashes between Meities and tribal groups, mainly Kuki and Zo tribes, show no signs of abating since May, after the Tribal Solidarity protest.
In this episode of the Suno India show, our reporter Sneha Richhariya speaks to a 49-year-old Kuki tribal woman who had fled from Imphal with her two sons. She gives horrific descriptions of violence back in Manipur. The episode sheds light on the plight of the Manipuri people who have been forced to flee their homes due to ongoing communal clashes. The episode takes us inside a tribal student’s protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar. With suspicion and fear in the air at, the episode captures the raw emotions and personal stories of those affected by the violence.
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In this thought-provoking episode, join reporter Mir Aiyaz from Kashmir as he delves into the hidden world of bride trafficking. Through heart-wrenching interviews and expert analysis, we expose the dark reality faced by vulnerable women who are bought and sold, forced into marriages against their will. Explore the intricate web of this illegal practice as we unravel the stories of Rubina and others like her, who share their journeys from deception to resilience. Discover the challenges they encounter, the social stigma they endure, and their courageous fight for justice and a better future. Brace yourself for an eye-opening exploration of the silenced voices and unspoken woes of trafficked brides in Kashmir.
REFERENCES
Impact of protracted conflict on women in Kashmir: tracking multidimensional exclusions within social and political institutions
Human trafficking - Hell in heaven on earth: Women in conflict zones - Telegraph India
Crime in India, 2021 – Volume III
The Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018
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On March 27, 2023 the Supreme Court released a death row convict, Narayan Chetanram Chaudhary on ground that he was a juvenile at the time of his arrest. Narayan convicted for gruesome murders in Pune where eight people were killed in 1994. Despite being on the death row, Narayan decided to educate himself. This journey led him to a path where he realised he was a juvenile at the time of offence, which was finally proved this year.
In this episode, Suno India's Menaka Rao speaks with Narayan and his lawyer, Shreya Rastogi. Rastogi who is the founding member of Project 39a and the director of Death Penalty Litigation in the organisation, which provided pro bono legal aid to Narayan and many others. This episode is about the alienation of accused persons in the legal system, and how Narayan fought his way out of it.
Project 39A — Death Penalty India Report
Supreme court judgement March 2023.pdf
Narayan Chetanram Chaudhary & Anr vs State Of Maharashtra on 5 September, 2000
Pratap Singh vs State Of Jharkhand & Anr on 2 February, 2005
Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection) Act 2000.
Free, after 25 years on death row: ‘Lost so many years. I want time to stop for me’ | Pune News, The Indian Express
Freedom to me is what the most precious material to the world is: Death row prisoner on release after 28 years in jail
Rajasthan: An error that sent Indian teen to death row for 25 years - BBC News
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In the past week, Manipur has been plagued by reports of violence. Clashes erupted on May 3, with images of angry mobs setting properties ablaze. The army was called in on May 4 to assist law enforcement, as a curfew was imposed in eight districts. The immediate violence erupted after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' protesting a court order directing the consideration of Meiteis for Scheduled Tribe status. The state government reported that 60 people died because of the violence in the state.
Now that the violence appears to have died down, there is an uneasy calm. We need to understand not only historic origins of the violence, but what measures can be taken in the future. The recent clashes in Manipur revolve around two communities: the Meiteis, who dominate the valley region, and the Kuki tribe, who inhabit the hills. The conflict is linked to the land and demography of the region, and its complex history.
Host Sneha Richhariya speaks to Prof. Kham Khan Suan Hausing, who has closely studied the conflict in Manipur and is currently Head of the Department of Political Science at the University of Hyderabad.
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Since January, top Indian wrestlers have been protesting over the lack of action against the head of the country’s wrestling federation, Brijbhushan Sharan Singh, accused of sexual harassment. This accusation is not the first in Indian sports.
In this episode, our host, Sneha Richhariya speaks to senior sports journalist Sharda Ugra about the conditions in which young athletes train in India, the hits and misses of the coverage of wrestler’s protest at Jantar Mantar, about her experiences reporting on sexual harassment in sports and the need for proper redressal mechanisms in sports training. Join us as we examine how national federations can make training and competing a safe space for athletes.
References:
Scuffle between wrestlers, Delhi police at Jantar Mantar; two protesters suffer head injuries, allege wrestlers
Who is BJP MP Brij Bhushan Singh, wrestling body chief accused of sexual harassment
Sexual Harassment: The Chronic Illness Of Indian Sport
The long battle to bring ex-DGP SPS Rathore to justice for molesting Ruchika Girhotra
How was Larry Nassar able to abuse so many gymnasts for so long?
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In 2019, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment and The National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre released a report called- National Survey on Extent and Pattern of Substance Use. At the national level, an estimated 2.9 crore of people in India are dependent on alcohol. About 25 lakh Indians are dependent on cannabis such as charas, ganja, and 28 lakh Indians are dependent on opioid substances such as heroin.
In this episode, Suno India’s Ayesha Fatima explores what addiction is like for addicts themselves, as well as their family members. Ayesha speaks with two former addicts who shares their battling journey of de-addiction spurring and inspiring people to overcome this ordeal. She also speaks with V Gideon is a de-addiction therapist and is the director of Living Sober Rehab, a deaddiction centre in Hyderabad, and Dr Lakshman Sudhir Gandham who is a consultant psychiatrist at Cadabam Hospital, Hyderabad. Ayesha Fatima worked as an intern.
References
Magnitude of substance use in India
Why are Drugs so Hard to Quit? | National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Clinical Guidelines for Withdrawal Management and Treatment of Drug Dependence in Closed Settings - NCBI Bookshelf
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On April 15, alleged mafia-turned-politician Atiq Ahmed and his brother, Ashraf were killed while in police custody and in the presence of media persons. The police allege that three assailants shot them at close range. The entire incident took place on live television.
Despite questions being raised on this custodial killing, there also appears to be public approval. Such “encounter” killings of alleged rapists or alleged gangsters are often celebrated by the public. In fact, Ahmed’s son, Asad was killed in a so-called police encounter just a few days before the incident after which Uttar Pradesh’s chief minister praised the police team. But what does this visible public acceptance of encounter killings tell us?
Sneha Richhariya speaks to Prakash Singh, ex-IPS Officer, who has also served as Director general of Police, Uttar Pradesh. He has also served in Assam and Border Security Force. Singh filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court seeking police reforms, in which a landmark verdict was delivered.
References:
GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF HOME AFFAIRS RAJYA SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 2287 TO BE ANSWERED ON THE 23RD MARCH, 2022
Plea moved in SC seeking inquiry over murders of Atiq Ahmed,Ashraf and 183 encounters in UP – ThePrint
3 Assailants Fired Over Dozen Rounds To Kill Atiq Ahmad, Brother Ashraf On Live Camera | 10 Points
183 criminals killed in police encounters since March 2017: UP Police – ThePrint –
A Chronicle of the Crime Fiction That is Adityanath's Encounter Raj
SC orders death for cops in fake encounters - India Today
Police encounters: No separate laws, but SC and NHRC have laid down strict guidelines - India Today
Prakash Singh & Ors vs Union Of India And Ors on 22 September, 2006
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Every day without fail for almost 50 days now, workers from all over the country gather at Jantar Mantar, singing songs of unity. Since Feb 2023, MNERGA workers from different states are coming to Delhi and protesting about a series of new policies that they believe will cut off the benefits of MNREGA in a significant way.
In this episode, Sneha Richhariya goes to Jantar Mantar to speak to the protesting workers, activists, lawyers, and a tech researcher on how the Digital app-based attendance and aadhaar based payments that have been made mandatory for MGNREGA workers, are threatening the survival of the scheme on the ground. The episode also highlights a double whammy of the severe union budget cuts and a bad administrative run down.
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The Rajasthan Right to Health Bill was passed on March 21, 2023. The Bill charts out patient rights and provides a mechanism to ensure proper implementation of the rights. However, private doctors have been protesting this Bill.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao tries to understand the discontentment. She spoke to Chhaya Pachauli, a health rights activist in Rajasthan representing Jan Swasthya Abhiyan in Rajasthan, a network of health rights activists and organisations across the country. She also spoke to Dr Tarun Patni, a practising pediatrician from Jaipur and former president of Jaipur Medical Association and Dr Ajay Chaudhary, president of the All Rajasthan In-Service Doctors Association that is supporting the strike.
Rajasthan government Bills & Acts
Right to Health Bill will create trouble… Health secy has brainwashed govt that they will get so many votes. They will not get any: Rajasthan IMA chief | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
With Right to Health Act, Ashok Gehlot seeks to build on his healthcare legacy, eyes a fresh term | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express
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In this episode, Sanaullah Khan speaks to women running small businesses in Hyderabad on how the increasing digitisation of payments is affecting them.
He also speaks to Shrikant Lakshmanan who is an expert in the field of digital payments and co-founded a consumer initiative called Cashless Consumer, which studies digital payments.
Sanaullah Khan was an intern with Suno India.
References
Disconnected: How Digital India Is Leaving Women Behind
National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5)
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Tourism contributes to more than 15 percent of jobs in India, as per 2022 figures by the Ministry of Tourism. The recent Union Budget was a mixed bag for this industry. The good news came from announcements to give a boost to domestic tourism. But for those who cater to international travel, the budget was disappointing. There is an increase in tax collected at source (TCS) from 5 percent to 20 percent. Domestic travellers who want to travel abroad will have to pay 15 percent more for TCS as compared to earlier- substantially increasing the costs.
Independent journalist Aruna Chandaraju spoke to two senior persons from the travel industry from Hyderabad-Valmiki Hari Kishan and Siraj Ansari- who spoke about the consequences of this tax increase on the people from travel industry as well as potential international travellers from India
Reference
Tourism and Hospitality sector is one of the largest employment generating sector in India: Shri G Kishan Reddy
‘Mission mode’ for tourism in Union Budget, but no increase in allocation - The Hindu
INDIA TOURISM STATISTICS 2022
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This is part 2 of a miniseries examining how the Central govt is limiting public access to information with laws and amendments. In the Data Protection Bill, the Central government has proposed an amendment for the RTI Act. With this amendment the government seeks to protect the privacy of lawmakers by changing 8.1 (j) section of the RTI Act.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee is speaking to Nikhil Dey about how the Right To Information Act is being diluted over the years with various amendments and how that affects people seeking information about the government. Nikhil Dey is the founder-member of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan (MKSS) and the National Campaign For People's Right to Information (NCPRI).
Jan Soochna Portal | Rajasthan gov
RTI Act 2005, (amended)
Attacks on RTI Activists in India
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In February 2023, 18-year-old Darshan Solanki ended his life barely three months into his Chemical Engineering course at IIT Bombay. In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Shreeja Rao, a first-year law student, about her experiences in educational institutions and the solutions needed so that students like her can achieve their dreams.
Months before Dalit student’s death, IIT-Bombay surveyed caste-discrimination on campus - The Hindu
If IITs Had More Dalit Professors, Would Aniket Ambhore Be Alive?
How India’s caste system limits diversity in science — in six charts | Nature
APPSC IIT Bombay tweets
RTI Responses Provide Clear Proof of IITs Flouting Reservation Policy in Faculty Recruitment
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This is the second episode in the two-part series on the crackdown on child marriages in Assam. Since February 2, the Assam government has arrested more than 3000 people for violating the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006. Some were also arrested under the stringent Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 or POCSO that can attract punishment up to life imprisonment.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Bharati Ali about the consequences of this kind of punitive action against child marriage, Bharati Ali a child rights activist based in Delhi. She is the executive director of Haq Centre for Child Rights. The organisation has worked on prevention of child marriages at the community level.
ReferencesTHE PROHIBITION OF CHILD MARRIAGE ACT, 2006
Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012
Crime in India 2021 | National Crime Records Bureau
GUIDELINES for 'MISSION VATSALYA' Scheme
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On February 3, Assam’s chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma launched what he called “war against child marriage.” The state police has now arrested more than 3000 people who allegedly facilitated child marriages and said that about 5000 more people are still at large. Pranjal Baruah reported for this episode from Assam. This is the first podcast in the two part series on this subject.
In this episode we try to understand if this kind of crackdown benefits those who the state government wants to rescue- the women and girls who were married when they were children. We hear the stories of women who are protesting against this move, as well as child rights activists Miguel Das Queah and Bharati Ali from Haq: Centre for Child Rights.
References
THE PROHIBITION OF CHILD MARRIAGE ACT, 2006
National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5)
Status of IMR and MMR in India
SAMPLE REGISTRATION SYSTEM (SRS)-SPECIAL BULLETIN ON MATERNAL MORTALITY IN INDIA 2018-20
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‘India: The Modi Question’ is a two-part documentary series by the BBC about the Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his relationship with the Muslim minority in India. The government has used the emergency provisions of IT Rules 2021 to take down the documentary from websites as well as social media posts with links or snippets of the documentary. Screenings of the documentary in universities around the country have been disrupted by university administration and police. There are two petitions in the Supreme Court challenging the blocking of the documentary by the government. In February, there was an Income Tax survey at the BBC office in Delhi in which employees’ phones were taken and laptops were scanned by the IT Department.
This is part 1 of a miniseries on The Suno India Show examining how the Centre is limiting public access to information with laws and amendments. For this episode about the blocking of the BBC documentary, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Tejasi Panjiar an Associate Policy Counsel at the Internet Freedom Foundation. IFF is an NGO that advocates for digital rights and liberties, dealing with online freedom, privacy, net neutrality, and innovation.
MIB adviser's tweets declaring online ban
Centre Violated Citizens' Right To Know By Blocking BBC Documentary On Modi : N Ram, Prashant Bhushan & Mahua Moitra Tell Supreme Court
IT(Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 English.pdf
Section 69A in The Information Technology Act, 2000
BBC documentary ‘blocking’: Ruling in The Leaflet’s case becomes basis for challenge
'Emergency': From John Cusack to Prashant Bhushan, the List of 50 Tweets the Modi Govt Has Censored
There is no ‘ban’ on the BBC Modi film, why are universities clamping down on it? | The News Minute
Finding 404: A Report on Website Blocking in India | SFLC.in
Indian tax authority raids BBC after critical documentary | CPJ Asia
Editors Guild India statement
Public Feedback On Fact Checking Will Strengthen IT Rules: Minister
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The Union budget is presented every year in February. But how do we know that the budget allocations are equitable? While most budget speeches talk about “empowerment” of women and other marginalised genders, does this translate into policy?
To answer these questions, Suno India’s Menaka Rao, spoke to Dr Vibhuti Patel. She is part of the Feminist Policy Collective, an independent network of feminist academic researchers, policy experts, and campaigners. Dr Patel has been with the feminist movement in India for decades, and is the vice-president of Indian Association for Women’s Studies. She retired from the Economics department Mumbai’s SNDT Women’s University. She also taught at Tata Institute of Social Sciences after retirement.
References
Feminist Policy Collective
BUDGET 2023-2024 NIRMALA SITHARAMAN
37.4% increase in capital expenditure to 10 lakh crore in be 2023-24
Prabhat Patnaik writes: The budget has ignored the poor
STATEMENT 13 GENDER BUDGET MINISTRY/DEPARTMENT 2021-2022 Actuals 2022-2023 Budget Estimates 2022-2023 Revised Estimates 2023-202
Representation in Panchayats
What is keeping Indian women out of the workforce?
Kisan Credit Card (KCC)
SUVs bought with Nirbhaya Fund diverted to provide Y-plus security to Shinde legislators | Cities News,The Indian Express
‘Biased, erroneous’: Centre rejects hunger index report | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
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On January 17, China announced its population is at 141.2 crore. According to the World Population Review, India's population increased to 142.3 crore people as of January 18. Though we have always seen overpopulation as a problem in our country, this could be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. 50% of our population is under 30 and it could lead India to become the fastest growing economy in the world. China on the other hand, is announcing incentives so that people have more children and boost their population after this decline.
In this episode of TSIS, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Poonam Muttreja, the Executive Director of Population Foundation of India, about the next steps we should take as a country.
India may overtake China as most populous country sooner than UN projections of 2027: Report - The Economic Times
India has surpassed China to become the most populous country in the world, as per estimates | Mint
India's surging population is an economic virtue
As the Chinese population shrinks, cities announce new childbirth incentives | The Indian Express
Depo-Provera
Investigation: Why Does India's Public Health System Want to Use Scary Injections for Birth Control in Women?
India uses controversial contraceptive in family planning programme | Business Standard News
It is time we start talking about side effects of contraceptives
India’s Forced Sterilization Practices Under International Human Rights Law - Völkerrechtsblog
Despite Tragic History of Sterilisation Camps, Chhattisgarh Has Not Learnt Its Lessons
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In this episode, Sneha Richhariya and Suhail Bhat visit Haldwani to make sense of the eviction order in Haldwani’s Banbhoolpura area, issued by the High Court on 20th December.
We take a deep dive into the politics of eviction and demolition in India and explain how it has become a tool for the state to subdue minorities. We put all this in perspective by explaining the politics and legality behind it. We also look at how the people here are navigating through employment, housing and education. We talk to them about how they are trying to organize, mobilize and fight against injustice.
This episode features conversations with residents, lawyers, petitioners, social activists, political experts and others.
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The Mangarh Massacre of November 1913 resulted in the death of around 1,500 people belonging to the Bhil tribe. They had gathered there to protest against the exploitation of tribal people by the British as well as rulers of princely states in the region. British and Indian forces attacked the protestors. This event is usually referred to as ‘Adivasi Jallianwala Bagh’ as it is not as well-known. However, there has been more chatter about this incident especially with upcoming elections in Rajasthan. Last year, the Prime Minister declared Mangarh Dham a national monument. While the state’s Congress government built the Tribal Freedom Struggle Museum at Mangarh Dham.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Dr Jitendra Meena, a professor of History at Shyam Lal College in Delhi University, to understand the historical and political significance of this incident.
Independence Day 2016 PM Modi on Tribal Museums | Spectrum India Online
3 states in one go: ‘Adivasi Jallianwala’ site at centre of unfolding BJP-Congress contest for tribal votes | The Indian Express
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Anti-feminist groups have become increasingly visible on Indian Twitter over the years with campaigns like #MenToo, #MarriageStrike and of course, the recent reaction to Shraddha Walkar’s murder. A study was conducted at the University of Michigan by Associate Professor Joyojeet Pal along with Sheyril Agarwal and Urvashi Patel to take a deeper look at these groups.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Sheyril Agarwal about how these groups work and what impact they are having on Indian society both online and offline.
The Indian Anti-feminist movement on Twitter – Joyojeet Pal
Joyojeet's Twitter thread on the study
Aayushi Murder Case: Man Shot Daughter In Delhi, Wife Helped Pack Body In Suitcase, Say Cops
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In November, there was a ransomware attack on the prestigious All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi. Patients suffered as the cyber systems were completely shut down for a few days and were running only manually. As AIIMS cyber systems are slowly limping back to normal, Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Dr. Muktesh Chander, an IPS officer who was the founder and director of the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre that started in 2010. He is an expert on matters related to cybersecurity and spoke about how it is important to consider putting cybersecurity mechanisms in place before expanding digital infrastructure
References
AIIMS server still down; police deny reports of ₹200-crore ransom demand - The Hindu
AIIMS cyberattack underlines challenge for hospitals amid Centre’s push to digitise health records
https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/a-first-look-at-the-new-data-protection-bill/article66162209.ece
THE DIGITAL PERSONAL DATA PROTECTION BILL, 2022
AIIMS cyber attack | Investigators asking E&Y about its audit of hospital’s cyber systems - The Hindu
Lessons from critical cyber security incidents - Express Computer
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Recently many Information technology-based companies including Meta, Twitter, Byju’s, Unacademy among others announced layoffs. Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Aabid Firdausi, a Ph.D. scholar in Sociology at Johns Hopkins University. His focus is on labour relations and unionisation. In 2020, he wrote a paper on unionisation at the IT industry in Kerala after conducting fieldwork at an IT park in Thiruvananthapuram. Aabid spoke about the history of the IT industry in India, and the precarity of the jobs in this sector.
Reference
(PDF) The IT Industry and Employment in India: A Critical Reassessment | Aabid Firdausi - Academia.edu
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In November 2022, Edtech firm Byju's announced 2500 layoffs. However, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala after intervention by a welfare organization called Pratidhwani, Byju restored about 150 jobs of those in Thiruvananthapuram.
This is the first podcast in a two-part series about IT sector layoffs. This podcast is about specific strategies employed by collectives, such as Pratidhwani and some unions which have been successful in negotiating for IT workers' rights.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Vineeth Chandran, Secretary of Pratidhwani, which is a welfare organization IT employees in Kerala, and Spandan, the general secretary of the Delhi chapter of All India IT/ITes Employees Union.
References
https://thefederal.com/business/kerala-govt-intervenes-after-byjus-lay-off-plan-at-technopark-triggers-protests/
Byjus, Meta, Twitter: India tech workers fight back amid mass layoffs - BBC News
https://www.facebook.com/labourcommissioneratekerala/posts/pfbid0XsZ39ra8tvnMbuYc43FT3XfM7XkDsk6mtbdxAAhcQQYGSbqHS4oF47V36RGCvzUgl?__cft__[0]=AZUN3QU5HyBrIvFw_kBQiYpDEFZIfqC51BYJEqZ5-R1Ccotu-ue2wgpmXuyXRsUguSSwejJoyDuWRJKYjjHYg6oFLQdoL57ffDTjGFjJhplatxd5xc9vbee2Gb99qRUgDtvmxRKS-juJCoJphAB-jtNe&__tn__=%2CO%2CP-R
BYJU'S Says 140 Layoffs In Kerala Are Revoked. This Is Why
KITU becomes first registered IT union in Karnataka | Deccan Herald
Bengaluru court asks Wipro to reinstate employee who was allegedly forced to quit | The News Minute
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We have come a long way since the AIDS epidemic of the 80’s and 90’s. Some of the groups that the HIV intervention programs focused on are men having sex with men and transgender women. In fact that is how the fight against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises “unnatural sexual” relationships began as liberation is key to queer people’s health. Despite the advancements since, queer people are still bullied in schools and rejected by their families, resulting in them turning to high-risk activities for relief and escape. On the other hand, the intervention programs have not caught up with technological changes posed by dating apps.
We are embarking on an LGBTQ miniseries about all things queer in India today. For our first episode, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to policy researcher Avinaba, HIV activist Firoz Khan, and a young person living with HIV, Vishwas. Avinaba is a genderqueer person and a research fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the co-founder of Pleqsus India foundation. Firoz Khan is a gay man who works with Alliance India on HIV outreach. Vishwas is an alias for a 22-year-old bisexual man who contracted HIV as a young teen. We spoke to them about the need for a more comprehensive HIV intervention plan.
Republished on December 01, 2022.
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In a complaint from a woman who suffered severe injuries after a pit bull attacked her, a Gurugram district consumer forum banned 11 foreign breeds of dogs in its district. Several cases related to street dogs are being heard both in high courts and the Supreme Court.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks with Neha Panchamiya, an expert on this issue. Neha is the Founder and President of RESQ, Pune, and is an animal rescue specialist and wildlife conservationist. She is also a Managing Committee Member of the Pune District Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
References
Gurugram consumer forum bans 11 foreign breeds
Be Indian, adopt Indian: AAP to campaign for stray dogs post-Delhi MCD elections | Mint
THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ACT, 1960
Animal Birth Control (dogs) rules, 2001
Dog Breeding and Marketing Rules.pdf
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The Supreme Court ruled that 10% reservation for Economically Weaker Sections in the General category is constitutional. In this episode of In Our Opinion, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks with journalist Tejas Harad about what this means for our reservation policy going forward. Previously, reservation was based on social, educational, political as well as economic backwardness. However, with EWS, economic status is the only criteria and it is capped at a household earning of Rs 8 lakhs. Congress Leader Dr. Jaya Thakur has filed a review petition against the Supreme Court judgement.
Data | Hundreds of eligible SC/ST/OBC applicants, zero admissions: Disparity in PhD intake at IITs - The Hindu
‘Over 40% of teaching posts in IITs are vacant’ - The Hindu
Sinho Commission Report
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The current boom of K-dramas in India has been in the works for decades. First, it spread in the North Eastern part of India. Then we saw it on Zee Zindagi. And finally, during the pandemic, the frenzy took over the country. Korean is now the fastest growing language in the country. In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Deepanjana Pal about why we love Kdramas. Deepanjana is an author of fiction and non-fiction novels and the managing editor of the Film Companion website.
The dramatic rise of K-Dramas in India - Mediawire
The era of pop-culture inspired learning - Times of India
What India watched in 2020 - Netflix
Manipur: A part of India where Korea rules | Arts and Culture | Al Jazeera
With More Female Screenwriters Do Korean TV Dramas Pass the Bechdel Test? - Forbes
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Recently, the Delhi Police arrested Aftab Poonawala for allegedly killing his live-in partner, Shradda Walker. As is often in the case of such murders, there was history of domestic violence. Shraddha allegedly told her friends that she was assaulted several times by her partner.
We are replaying an older episode from our series Pinjra Tod Kar, reported by Padma Priya DVL. It follows the story of Sultana who suffered months of violence by her husband and was nearly killed by him. Like Shraddha, Sultana too, did not have the support of her family which made it difficult for her to seek help.
The episode discusses the toughest challenges facing women and their right to dignity and life- violence against women and specifically domestic violence. This episode features Sultana who is a survivor of domestic violence, Vasudha Nagaraj, a women’s rights lawyer and feminist poetry by Jameela Nishat, founder of Shaheen Women’s Welfare and Resource Association.
This podcast is conceived and produced by Goethe-Zentrum Hyderabad with the support of Suno-India and Bol-Hyderabad
If you or any other woman are in abusive marriages or relationships and need support you can log on to www.ncw.nic.in. The NCW helpline whatsapp number is 7827170170. The other helpline numbers are available on http://www.ncw.nic.in/helplines
References
Watch - 'Rescue Me...': Murdered Delhi Woman's Friend Says She Sent SOS
National Commission for Women
Helplines | National Commission for Women
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October 1 was National Voluntary Blood Donation Day. The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare organised a massive drive- #RaktdaanAmritMahotsav- starting from September 17 - which is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s birthday all the way up to October 1. The Ministry claimed that they collected a record number of blood units- about 1.68 lakhs in a single day.
But how do blood centres cope for the rest of the year? There are 3932 blood banks in the country for more than 700 districts, as per the latest records. Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Joy Mammen to understand the universe of blood banking and transfusions. Dr Mammen is head of transfusion medicine at Christian Medical College, Vellore. Dr Mammen led a major study commissioned by the National Blood Transfusion Council on the clinical demand of blood in the country.
References
World record created on Day 1 of ‘Raktdaan Amrit Mahotsav’, Mandaviya tweets | Latest News India - Hindustan Times
Common Cause vs Union Of India And Others on 4 January, 1996
National Blood Policy
The_clinical_demand_and_supply_of_blood_in_India:_A_National_level_estimation_study
Repeat voluntary non-remunerated blood donor is the best quality indicator for blood safety
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The Global Hunger Index 2022 ranks India at 107 among 121 countries. Afghanistan is the only country in South Asia that performs worse than India on the index. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, prevalence of undernourishment in India declined from 2005 onwards, but the trend was reversed beginning in 2016. From 13.3% in 2017, it rose to a 14-year high of 16.3% in 2021.
The Mahatma Gandhi Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 or NREGA is an Indian labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the right to work. In the past, NREGA has been an effective tool to reduce hunger in the country. In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Nikhil Dey, a founding member of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, a peasant and worker’s organisation. He explains how NREGA has weakened over the years and what can be done to reduce hunger in India now.
India - Global Hunger Index (GHI) - peer-reviewed annual publication designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at the global, regional, and country levels
Global Hunger Report 2022- The index is an erroneous measure of hunger and suffers from serious methodological issues | PIB
Fact check: Is the government right to criticise India's low ranking on the Global Hunger Index?
Hunger Watch survey reports
8 out of 10 Indian households faced food insecurity last year despite free ration relief: Survey
Food and Agriculture Organization STAT
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Womeniya, an all female music band from Dehradun is a power packed combination of four women musicians who have fought against set traditions of society and family; and have not hesitated to take risks to realise their dream of pursuing a career as female musicians. Sudeshna Chowdhury brings you their story.
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India ranks first in the number of road accident deaths across 199 countries. According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s latest 2022 report, 1.55 lakhs people were killed in road crashes in 2021.
The death of former Tata Group chairman Cyrus Mistry in September has renewed efforts to improve road safety across the country. Since then, Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari has said that even economy models of cars will have six airbags. But the International Road Federation has said that airbags can increase risk of death if rear passengers are not wearing seatbelts.
So, what are the dos and don’ts of road safety? To find out, TSIS host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Piyush Tewari, the Founder and CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation.
References
NCRB CHAPTER – 1A TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS
Road Accidents in India 2020
In Karnataka, Rs 1,000 fine for not wearing seat belts on rear seats | The Indian Express
Road safety body wants Nitin Gadkari to withdraw six airbags mandate
'Cyrus Mistry crash road has over 30 safety hazards'
About Road Safety | Ministry of Road Transport & Highways, Government of India.
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On September 28, the Ministry of Home Affairs declared the Popular Front of India (PFI) a banned institution under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. This ban came after arrests of more than 100 leaders all over the country followed by protests. The government said that PFI was involved in several criminal and terror cases, and is a major threat to the internal security of the country.
Suno India’s Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks with senior Kerala-based journalist, Shahina KK to understand the origins of the organisation, and the controversies surrounding it. Shahina has won the Chameli Devi Award for outstanding woman journalist in 2011. She is the associate editor of the digital news platform, The Federal.
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Since July, huge amounts of cash have been seized by central agencies from various key figures in West Bengal politics. It all started with Partho Chatterjee who was at the time the Education Minister of Bengal. At different properties of his close associate Arpita Mukherjee, the Enforcement Directorate seized around 50 crore rupees in connection with the Staff Selection Commission scam or the SSC scam. Then TMC leader Anubrata Mondal was arrested by the CBI in August in a cross border cattle smuggling scam. A fixed deposit worth ₹16.97 crores belonging to his family members and associates had been seized by the investigators. In September, the CBI said that ₹80 lakh cash had been seized from the premises of Raju Sahani, a TMC municipality chairman, in connection with a chit-fund scam.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Sambit Pal about what this means for TMC’s future in the state. He is the author of Bengal Conundrum: Rise of the BJP and Future of the TMC. He is a senior journalist from West Bengal and an Associate Professor at the MIT Art, Design and Technology University in Pune.
NDTV Expose: Meet Karnataka's Bribe-Paying Contractors
ED granted 14-day custody of TMC MLA in teachers' recruitment case | Hindustan Times
Why are the CBI and ED conducting raids only in non-BJP ruled states?
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This is the third episode of our miniseries “In the Red” on the blood supply shortage in the country. If you are listening to this episode, do make sure you have heard Part 1 and Part 2 of this mini-series In the Red.
In this last episode, we try to understand the universe of blood banking and blood transfusions. Suno India’s Menaka Rao reports from Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh trying to understand how voluntary blood donations result in better supply of blood in the country and what measures can be taken to remedy this problem. Menaka speaks with Dr Joy Mammen, head of transfusion medicine at Christian Medical College, Vellore, Rajat Agarwal from Sankalp India foundation and Atul Gera who work in the field of voluntary blood donations.
The reporting for this series is supported by Turuga Foundation which awarded me the Narender Revelli National Media Fellowship.
References
Common Cause vs Union Of India And Others on 4 January, 1996
National Blood Policy
The_clinical_demand_and_supply_of_blood_in_India:_A_National_level_estimation_stdudy
Expert working group on manpower norms in blood centres
Reply to Lob Sabha question August, 2022
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While in many parts of the world, a child living with blood disorders such as thalassemia or sickle cell anemia can practically live a normal life, in most of India they may not survive up to adulthood. This is because of a lack of regular blood supply and monitored treatment for these children.
In this episode Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to people who suffer from blood disorders such as thalassaemia and sickle cell disease in rural Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh, and doctors and experts who work with these children.
References
Guidelines for Prevention and Control of Hemoglobinopathies in India
Global epidemiology of haemoglobin disorders and derived service indicators - PMC
Life expectancy and risk factors for early death in patients with severe thalassemia syndromes in South India - PMC
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In the Red is a mini-series in the Suno India Show on the blood supply shortages in the country, particularly in rural India. The reporting for this series is supported by Turuga Foundation that awarded Menaka Rao the Narender Revelli National Media Fellowship, 2021.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao travelled to parts of Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh to report on how the insufficient supply of blood in the blood bank hampers the health of people living in the district, particularly when there is just a single blood bank in the district.
This is the first episode in the series. The next episode will focus on how the blood shortage affects those who have blood-related disorders such as thalassaemia and sickle cell disease.
References
Chronic Anemia - StatPearls - NCBI Bookshelf
The clinical demand and supply of blood in India: A National level estimation study
Trends in maternal mortality in India over two decades in nationally representative surveys - PMC
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In this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Satya Bharti regarding the recent go-ahead by the National Medical Commission (NMC) allowing Indian students who were pursuing their medical degree in Ukraine to make use of the academic mobility option offered by Ukraine. This allows them to transfer to other universities to complete their education while their degree would be awarded by the parent Ukrainian university. Despite this, students say this announcement has barely offered any relief.
Additional reading
Medical students from Ukraine can continue in other countries: NMC | Education News,The Indian Express
Concerns Over Health Ministry’s Scheme For Ukraine–Returned Students As It Mirrors Route Taken By Unscrupulous Agents
Can’t give MBBS students from Ukraine seats in India: Government
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The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) and Tattle civic tech have created Uli, a machine learning tool that can be used on certain internet browsers to limit online gender based violence or OGBV. In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Tarunima Prabhakar, the research lead and co-founder at Tattle civic tech, Chesta Arora, a researcher at CIS studying intersections between internet culture and society, and Brindaalakshmi K, a research and advocacy professional working at the intersection of gender, sexuality, human rights and technology.
We find out what is the need for Uli that social media platforms are not fulfilling and how it helps the tool’s target audience of gender-marginalised people who face daily abuse online.
Uli
Sulli Deals: No arrests a month on, as the women keep fighting for justice
From Sulli Deals to Bulli Bai, how the police traces anonymous criminals online
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The Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, has the largest collection of Naga material culture in the world (around 6466 items), including the human remains of Naga ancestors. Anthropologists Dolly Kikon and Arkotong Longkumer have been working as part of a community-led initiative to ensure the return of the Naga ancestral remains to their rightful home in Nagaland. Through this project, Dolly and Arkotong say they are discovering how Indian mainland scholars have also used and abused Naga ancestral remains in similar ways and that some Indian museums continue to store them.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Dolly and Arkotong to learn more about this path-breaking work. This is the first time that repatriation of ancestral human remains have been initiated in India and even Asia, for indigenous people. Dolly Kikon is a Senior Lecturer in the Anthropology and Development Studies Program at Melbourne University, and a Senior Research Associate at the Australia India Institute. Arkotong Longkumer is Senior Lecturer in Modern Asia at the University of Edinburgh, and Senior Research Fellow at the Kohima Institute in Nagaland.
Morung Lecture XIV: Naga Ancestral Remains, Repatriation and Healing of the Land
The Unfinished Business of Colonialism: Naga Ancestral Remains and the Healing of the Land | MorungExpress
Critical Changes | Pitt Rivers Museum
Pitt Rivers Museum | Oxford and Colonialism
Working Towards Return with the Pitt Rivers Museum
Return Reconcile Renew
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Wular lake in Kashmir is a main source of livelihood for families who live by it. While the men are expected to go fishing, or even step out of the village for daily wage labour, the cleaning of the lake is considered the duty of women. Women go out in boats at the crack of dawn and deweed the lake every single day.
In this podcast, independent journalist Baseera Rafiqi speaks with the women who go to the lake everyday. Baseera who is a resident of Bandipora raises an important question - Why is it that only women are expected to do this work. She talks about how women’s work is invisible in the fishing industry.
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Entertainment journalism platform Film Companion and media consulting firm Ormax Media conducted a study and released the O Womaniya report. It looks at the state of women in the industry onscreen as well as behind the scenes. It found that only 10% of heads of departments are women. It has collected various other data about women directors and editors, films passing the bechdel test, trailer talk times for women, etc.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Film Companion’s Anupama Chopra and Ormax Media’s Shailesh Kapoor.
O Womaniya!
O Womaniya! 2022 Adda | Anupama Chopra | Film Companion, Ormax Media, Prime Video
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In August 2022, the Network Contagion Research Institute and Rutgers University released a report saying that they have detected a community on Twitter that is promoting self-harm. These tweets have graphic photos with bloody depictions of self-harm. The use of some hashtags went up by 500% over the past 11 months, according to the report, despite reporting on it.
World Suicide Prevention day falls on September 10. Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Shagufta Kamran, Director - Public Policy & Government at Twitter India on Twitter’s policy related such problematic content, and what measures are being taken to address harmful content including cyber bullying, targeted harassment, and also what they were doing using their platform to help prevent suicide in the country.
References
https://networkcontagion.us/wp-content/uploads/NCRI_Twitter-Report_8.29.pdf
Preventing Suicide: A Resource for Media Professionals, Update 2017. Geneva: World Health Organization
India - Twitter Transparency Center
Inside the Hindu IT Cell: The men who went online to protect gods
Inside the Hindu IT Cell – The men who went online to protect gods - The Suno India Show - Omny.fm
Born digital, Born free? A Socio-Legal Study on Young Women's Experiences of Online Violence in South India
New Study Shows Shocking Scale of Abuse on Twitter Against Women Politicians in India – Amnesty International USA
Indian female Twitter influencers’ perceptions of trolls | Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
Twitter's suicide & self-harm policy
How Twitter handles abusive behavior
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The World Suicide Day falls on September 10. As per the World Health Organisation, an estimated 703000 people die by suicide every year. The recent data from National Crime Records Bureau or NCRB recorded the highest levels of suicides in the country. Last year 1.64 lakh persons died by suicide- an increase of 7.2 percent from 2020. This is the first time in suicide rates in India has hit 12 per 100000 population since NCRB started collecitng data on suicides in 1967.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Lakshmi Vijaykumar and Dr Soumitra Pathare. Dr Lakshmi is a psychiatrist renowned for her work on suicide prevention. She is a member of the WHO’s International Network for Suicide Research and Prevention. Dr Soumitra is a psychiatrist and director of Centre for Mental Health, Law and Policy. He has helped the government in drafting the Mental health Care Act 2017, which takes a rights based approach to mental health.
References
https://www.who.int/campaigns/world-suicide-prevention-day/2022
Deaths by suicide highest ever in India in 2021, domestic problems biggest reason, shows NCRB data
Suicide numbers during the first 9-15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic compared with pre-existing trends: An interrupted time series analysis in 33 countries
Suicide and suicide risk
The Sources of Parent-Child Transmission of Risk for Suicide Attempt and Deaths by Suicide in Swedish National Samples | American Journal of Psychiatry
Postpartum haemorrhage remains leading cause of maternal deaths in Kerala: Report
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On August 15, 11 convicts in the case relating to Bilkis Bano during the 2002 Gujarat Riots were released. The 11 convicts were serving life sentences, and the jail time was commuted. Bilkis was 21 years old and five months pregnant when she was gang-raped while fleeing riots. In this incident, her three-year-old daughter along with six others were killed.
Menaka and Padmapriya DVL discuss the stringent remission policy, its fairness in the context of Bilkis Bano convicts, and remission and other reformative practices that should be available to more prisoners. We spoke to Anup Surendranath, Nikita Sonavane, and Mrinalini Ravindranath. Anup Surendranath teaches law at the National Law University, Delhi and is the executive director of Project 39 A- a criminal justice programme which works with death penalty convicts, and others. Nikita is the co-founder of the Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project in Bhopal, while Mrinalini works as a research assistant there.
References
Special Remission Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM) (Module in ePrisons) Ministry of Home Affairs
Section 435 in The Code Of Criminal Procedure, 1973
Convicts in Bilkis Bano case came out on frequent parole as witnesses cited threats | Cities News,The Indian Express
‘There is fear’: Muslim families flee village, take shelter in relief colony | Cities News,The Indian Express
Bilkis Bano Case : Supreme Court Erred In Holding That Gujarat Govt Has Power To Decide Remission - Sr Adv Rebecca John
From Segregation to Labour, Manu’s Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System
Special Remission Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav (AKAM) (Module in ePrisons) Ministry of Home Affairs
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Revadi culture seems to be the buzzword in politics today. It started with a speech made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and now has been responded to by many leaders including Delhi Chief Minister, Arvind Kejriwal, Tamil Nadu Finance Minister, P Thiagarajan among others.
Suno India’s Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Dipa Sinha who teaches economics in Ambedkar University to understand the politics behind these debates. Dipa is actively involved in the Right to Food campaign and has worked with the Centre for Equity Studies and Public Health Research Network. She regularly writes on issues related to social justice.
References
Election freebies: Supreme Court refers matter to three-judge bench
Revisiting the S. Subramaniam Balaji vs Tamil Nadujudgment
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This is part three of our miniseries on disability and technology on The Suno India Show, where we talk to people across a range of disabilities. In this episode, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Nandita Venkatesan who is a journalist. Nandita was struck with tuberculosis twice and lost her hearing because of side effects of toxic tuberculosis medicines. She talks about how technology can exclude the hearing imparied like her when she is trying to watch a movie, or watch television news or travel by train. She also spoke about the kind of apps that are helping her.
References
Deafness and hearing loss | WHO
Accessibility Standards for TV Programmes for Hearing Impaired
Hearing Aids Market to Hit Value of USD 13.0 Billion by 2028
Meaningful Gesture: All Govt Press Conferences, Meetings May Soon Have Sign Language Interpreters
प्रज्ञप्ति - youtube channel for primary school students with disability
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This is part two of our miniseries on disability and technology on The Suno India Show, where we talk to people across a range of disabilities. In this episode, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Sai Prasad Vishwanathan, the first Indian with a disability to set foot on and live on the Antarctic continent. He is also the first Indian with a disability to skydive which went down in the Limca Book of Records. He has won a host of awards, including the Helen Keller Role Model Person Award 2010 given by the Home Minister. He talks about the infrastructural issues he continues to face in his daily life and how technology perpetuates such exclusions.
The protections for passengers with a disability on flights and the latest amendment - The Hindu
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This is part one of our miniseries on disability and technology on The Suno India Show, where we talk to people across a range of disabilities. In this episode, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Apurupa, a neuroqueer sexuality educator. Apurupa talks about how they realised they have autism thanks to the internet and how different kinds of technology help them navigate the world more comfortably.
In India, Autism was recognised as a disability in 2016 under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016. More people globally are being diagnosed with autism, with a 178 per cent increase in the past 20 years. In India, 1 in every 100 children below the age of 10 has autism.
Assistive technology can be any item, equipment, or product system that helps people with disabilities. In this miniseries, we let our guests define what assistive tech means to them. So we have people talking about things from stim toys to larger infrastructural challenges like a lack of elevators.
Autism Statistics
Prevalence of autism spectrum disorder in Indian children: A systematic review and meta-analysis
Telemedicine Practice Guidelines
Women Are Discovering They May Have ADHD Or Be On The Autism Spectrum From Trending TikTok Videos
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The Indian Constitution is a result of debates and deliberations by the Constituent Assembly over three years between 1946 to 1959. As a barely formed nation, what were the issues that bothered our leaders and intellectuals and how did they debate these issues. These debates are a reflection of the idea of India as a nation and the country’s aspirations
On the occasion of the 75th year of Independence, we at Suno India are releasing a podcast series on the raging Constituent Assembly debates and the Constitution–Contested Nation. It is researched and hosted by the Equals Project. The Equals project is an initiative that helps bring awareness about constitutional history and process by which constitution was written.
In this episode, Suno India’s Menaka Rao hosting speaks with Shruti V, the founder of Equals Project.
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On July 21, HIV positive persons started protesting outside the National AIDS Control Organisation’s office in Delhi. They are protesting the stock outs of different medicines all over the country. Stock outs of anti HIV medicines have been reported for years now. HIV activists ask: Why can’t NACO fix this problem?
In this episode, we speak with HIV positive activists such as Hari Shankar from Delhi Network of Positive People, Loon Gangte from the International Treatment Preparedness Coalition (ITPC), Jhanabi Goswami from Assam Network of Positive persons who tell us about the different problems people are facing due to stock outs. One is that some people have been asking to come within days to collect their medicines, instead of getting a month’s doses making it harder for patients to follow their regimen. Some children’s parents have been asked to cut tablets meant for adults into many parts. For some people, their regimen has been changed because of stock outs.
Reference
https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/9789240038608
https://scroll.in/pulse/810086/maharashtras-hiv-patients-battle-an-acute-shortage-of-drugs
Drug shortage – not HIV – is killing children in Chhattisgarh
A crucial drug used to treat HIV in children is fast running out in many parts of India
HIV AIDS: Patients face unprecedented shortage of crucial drugs as government body stops supply
WHO recommends dolutegravir as preferred HIV treatment option in all populations
Interview: How South Africa pushed through major reforms to make medicines more affordable
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The West Bengal government is working on opening a coal mine in the district of Birbhum. The mine in the Deucha Pachami area will be the largest in Asia and the second largest in the world. It will displace around 21,000 people, majority of whom belong to scheduled castes and tribes.
India is one of the governments around the world that have signed the UN Framework Convention of Climate Change. This year, the Union Ministry of Coal set up a Just Transition division for which the World Bank is supposed to provide an aid of $1.15 million. We have committed to net zero carbon emissions by 2070. So why are we increasing coal production while promising to phase it down?
To understand these contradictions, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Pradip Swarnakar in this episode of The Suno India Show. He is a professor and the founder of the Just Transition research centre at IIT Kanpur.
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The World Health Organisation has declared monkeypox a public health emergency of international concern. Nearly 70 countries have reported cases of Monkeypox so far.
In July, India had its first known case of monkeypox in Kerala when a 35-year old man who returned from the Middle East was detected with the disease. Since then four cases have been detected, including one in Delhi from a person with no travel history abroad.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks to Dr Giridhara Babu on this issue. He is a professor and head of Life Course epidemiology at the Indian Institute of Public Health, which is a constituent of the Public Health Foundation of India.
References
First case of monkeypox in India reported from Kerala - The Economic Times
Delhi reports first Monkeypox case, India's fourth | India News - Times of India
Clinical management and infection prevention and control for monkeypox: interim rapid response guidance, 10 June 2022
India's fourth monkeypox case in Delhi; patient went to Himachal, no history of foreign travel
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From Hyderabad police snatching phones on streets to check for ‘ganja’ to Delhi police seizing journalist Mohammed Zubair’s devices for a tweet, such seizures have become a routine part of policing. After all, with modern technology, our personal devices have become repositories of our whole lives. So it gives the police easy access to all our information in one place, making investigations that much easier.
But do you want the police to have access to everything about you? Not only is it a concern because of our right to privacy, but also there have been allegations of the police planting evidence on such devices. So where does the law stand on this and what are our rights? To find out, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to tech and legal researcher and human rights activist Usha Ramanathan in this episode of The Suno India Show.
This interview happened before the Supreme Court upheld the Enforcement Directorate’s powers relating to arrest, attach property, search and seize under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
References
Criminal Procedure Bill: Break a law and the police can store your personal information - Suno India
Criminal Procedure Bill: Data collection can lead to surveillance by different govt bodies - Suno India
How the Tarun Tejpal verdict set back the rape law reforms - Suno India
Zubair’s arrest: Can a journalist be forced to hand over his electronic devices to the police? | Scroll
Bhima Koregaon: Forensic report says key evidence against jailed activist was planted | The News Minute
Riley v. California (06/25/2014)
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In celebration of 75 years of Independence, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced free booster doses at government vaccination centres for 75 days from July 15 to September 30, 2022. A few days after this announcement, the news website The Wire published a shocking story on how the Central Drug Standards Control Organisation - the CDSCO - the country’s drug regulatory agency- never approved of precautionary doses.
In this episode, we speak to Banjot Kaur, the reporter who broke this important story this July. Early this year, a Telangana court asked The Wire to take down several articles related to vaccine policy based on a defamation suit by Bharat Biotech, which manufactures Covaxin. One of these stories pulled down was Banjot’s story. She has been writing on science and public health for 12 years, and has worked at Down to Earth Magazine and Times of India.
References
PM Modi's address to the nation
Exclusive: Nobody Approved India’s ‘Precautionary’ Doses – The Wire Science
Press briefing on the actions taken, preparedness and updates on COVID-19, Dated: 24.12.2021
10 Questions the Indian Govt Must Answer About Vaccines for Minors and Boosters
DCGI clears Bharat Biotech, SII COVID-19 vaccines but efficacy question unanswered
https://www.sunoindia.in/the-suno-india-show/why-a-covaxin-controversy-in-bhopal-is-worrying-trial-participants-activists-and-experts/
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The Reuters Digital Report 2022 which surveyed 46 countries around the world to find out what is the state of news consumption today. It has several interesting findings. For example: Trust in news has decreased globally as people suspect political biases. Young people are especially likely to selectively avoid news because of it being depressing. Can’t really blame them can we? But surprisingly, India is one of the countries where trust has increased compared to the previous year. India is also more mobile-focused than other countries with 72% of Indians surveyed accessing news through their mobile phones.
Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2022 Don't jail journalists for what they say… India a democracy: Germany | Indian Express How India's Media Landscape Changed Over Five Years | The India Forum 67 journalists arrested, detained, questioned in India in 2020 for their work | The News Minute
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The episode, part of a mini-series sets context about why it is important to communicate well during a pandemic like COVID-19 and features discussions between Suno India editor-in-chief DVL Padma Priya and Prof Anant Bhan, a researcher in Global health, bioethics and health policy who works for a not-for-profit health policy organisation Sangath and also Dr Usha Raman, professor at the Department of Communications at the University of Hyderabad.
This mini-series has been made possible by a grant from the Thakur Family Foundation.
India readies itself to address the threat of pandemic influenza India’s Pandemic Preparedness and Response
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In May 2022, the Delhi High Court delivered a verdict on several petitions seeking to remove the marital rape exception in the rape law. Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code excludes sexual intercourse between a married couple. The verdict was split with Justice Rajiv Shakder ruling in favour of removing the exception, and Justice C Hari Shankar dismissing the petition.
In this episode, we try to discuss our opinion on the judgement, especially the dissenting verdict which seeks to keep the marital law exception in the rape law. Suno India’s Padmapriya DVL and Menaka Rao discuss the judgement threadbare, thinking aloud about the implications of this judgement
Delhi High Court marital rape judgement Independent Thought vs. Union of India and Anr. Criminalisation of marital rape | Appeal filed in Supreme Court against Delhi High Court’s split verdict – The Hindu Conjugal rights before the Supreme Court | Explained News,The Indian Express National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5), 2019-21 Women and Consent Carole Pateman Political Theory, Vol. 8, No. 2. (May, 1980), pp. 149-168.
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In light of cases against Nupur Sharma for her comments about Prophet Mohammed on Times Now and against Alt News co-founder Mohammed Zubair for his comments about Hindu seers, we look at how to define the right to free speech in our current political climate. As hate speech is becoming increasingly common, so are threats to free speech and press freedom. In the 2022 World Press Freedom index, India ranks at 150 out of 180 countries, falling several places over the years.
In this episode of TSIS, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to V. Krishna Ananth. A former lawyer and a journalist, he now teaches history at the Sikkim University, Gangtok. Last year, he wrote a book called ‘Between Freedom and Unfreedom: The Press in Independent India’ which chronicles the history of the Indian press. We look at what the law says about free speech and how our understanding of it has changed through history.
Kashmir is ground zero of press freedom clampdowns across India - Suno India Pegasus: Understanding the super spy that controls your phone - Suno India Nav-nirman Andolan of Gujarat, 1973-74: A new awakening | India Today Why the 1974 All-India Railway Strike Is Relevant Even Today | The Wire Article 19 in The Constitution Of India 1949 Section 124A in The Indian Penal Code Report of the Press Commission Part 1 1954
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On May 19, the Supreme Court passed an order observing that sex workers have the right to live with dignity under Article 21 of the Constitution. They came up with several directives to ensure that sex workers who are in the profession by choice can live a life of dignity.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Meena Saraswathi Seshu to find out what these directives mean and how they will impact the lives of sex workers on the ground. Seshu is the founder of Sangram, a Sangli-based organisation that works for the rights of sex workers. She also runs a collective of more than 5000 sex workers in Maharashtra and north Karnataka called VAMP or Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad.
Additional reading:
Supreme Court May 19 Order on Sex Workers Budhadev Karmaskar vs State Of West Bengal on 14 February, 2011 RAIDED (E-Book)| Latest News, Events of SANGRAM. Sex Workers In India – Life In A “Gutter”| Countercurrents
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In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Karishma and Leeza behind the Instagram handles @talkyounevergot and @leezamangaldas. Karishma has almost 50,000 followers and Leeza has over 8,30,000 followers. They are sex educators who use social media to reach people across the country. They are two among a growing number.
In this episode, they explore what sex education is, what it is like being sex ed influencers and how they impact people in a country with little access to such information.
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Suno India’s Menaka Rao visits Jahangirpuri area where riots broke out and demolition drive took place last month. On May 16, a procession was taken out on the occasion of Hanuman Jayanti which resulted in stone pelting and violence in Delhi’s Jahangirpuri area. On May 20, Delhi’s civic authorities started a demolition drive in the area, without giving any notice to the property owners. This episode will try to understand how the residents there understand these series of events. The episode also features a discussion with Dr Ghazala Jamil from Jawaharlal Nehru University’s Centre for the Study of Law and Governance.
Incidents of communal flare-up during Hanuman Jayanti; mob targets police in Karnataka’s Huballi 45 properties of suspected rioters demolished in Madhya Pradesh – The Hindu It all started with a bulldozer in Jahangirpuri | India News,The Indian Express Supertech twin towers demolition: SC extends deadline to August 28 | Cities News,The Indian Express
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It has been almost two months since medical students flew home to India from the war in Ukraine. While they deal with the trauma of their war experiences, students say the struggle is far from over. According to the regulations of the National Medical Commission, they will be disqualified from working as a doctor in India unless they finish their education in the same college. Now their future hangs in limbo. Most of these students are from small-town, middle-class families and have taken loans to support their Ukraine education.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to students Mohammed Mahtab Raza from East Champaran, Bihar; Satya from Delhi and Prajjwal Singwal from Rudraprayag, Uttarakhand.
Guidelines for registration of Foreign Medical Graduates | NMC Ukraine crisis: NMC allows foreign medical graduates to complete internship in India – Hindustan Times SC asks NMC to help MBBS students hit by Ukraine crisis, coronavirus pandemic | The Indian Express West Bengal: Students from Ukraine to attend practicals in 17 medical colleges | TOI Karnataka: Medical students from Ukraine to continue studies in 60 state colleges | The Indian Express Poland and Hungary lend a helping hand to medical students in Ukraine | TOI
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Does our social identity, be it caste, religion, or tribe, affect how long we live? Two papers show that Dalits, Adivasi and Muslims have a disadvantage when it comes to life expectancy as compared to the higher caste Hindus.
In this podcast Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to demographers Aashish Gupta, Sangita Vyas, both research fellows at the research institute for compassionate economics or r.i.c.e. While Aashish is a David E Bell Fellow at Harvard University. Sangita is soon-to-be assistant professor at Hunter College, in New York. Menaka also spoke to Anjela Taneja, Oxfam India Lead Specialist in Health, Education and Inequality to understand how Dalits and tribals are at a disadvantage in India’s health system.
REFERENCES
Large and Persistent Life Expectancy Disparities between India’s Social Groups – Gupta – – Population and Development Review – Wiley Online Library Social disadvantage, economic inequality, and life expectancy in nine Indian states | PNAS https://twitter.com/aashishg_/status/1511528303483568131?s=20&t=hcL437GBhqEAvtDeYkmroQ Securing Rights of Patients in India http://clinicalestablishments.gov.in/WriteReadData/8431.pdf Racism and Health | Health Equity | CDC How Serena Williams Saved Her Own Life Why do women live longer than men? – Our World in Data
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The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting is merging the Films Division (FD) the National Film Archives of India (NFAI), the Children’s Film Society of India (CFSI), and the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF) under the National Film Development Corporation (NFDC). The first four are public-funded bodies while the latter is a for-profit company that has been incurring losses. The four bodies are responsible for various functions such as production of documentaries and short films, organisation of film festivals and preservation of film archives. Even as the merger is underway, it is unclear what the end result will look like.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Shilpi Gulati, a national award-winning documentary filmmaker and academic. Shilpi helped draft the letter from the film fraternity that highlighted the concerns with this merger and urged the government to reconsider. She talks about how this will affect the future of films in our country.
References:
Cinematograph Bill: Another layer of censorship for filmmakers | TSIS Report of Bimal Julka Committee | Ministry of Information and Broadcasting A Difficult Year For The Indian Film Fraternity – Shilpi Gulati | FemAsia Magazine A worrying trend: India’s new economy can not be a monopoly board | Business Standard NFDC India – YouTube
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Now every summer, we talk about heat waves. And yet, it’s different every year. This year heat waves arrived earlier than usual in March and lasted longer than usual, going on for six weeks. And there are more to follow. In parts of Central and Northwest India, temperatures have already crossed 40-45 celsius. The Indian Meteorological Department has predicted that this summer will be hotter than usual. So how can we protect our health personally? And what can governments at different levels do to minimise deaths of vulnerable people? In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Dr. Dilip Mavalankar, director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar.
References:
Heat Wave | NDMA, GoI National Guidelines for Preparation of Action Plan - Prevention and Management of Heat Wave Over 7 lakh yearly deaths in India linked to abnormal temperatures: Lancet study - The Hindu India and Pakistan heatwave is 'testing the limits of human survivability' | CNN What is heat wave and does India have a strategy to deal with it? Business Standard
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Press freedom is increasingly endangered across the world. At least 28 journalists were killed due to their work in 2021, with India and Mexico topping the list of countries with the most media worker deaths, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Journalists in many countries are feeling the pressure as they are arbitrarily imprisoned, silenced or killed in some instances, for the work they do. But journalists are continuing to push boundaries and in some cases are transcending borders to report on important causes. Notwithstanding the global climate of curbs on freedom of expression, a handful of intrepid foreign correspondents from India are travelling across the world to tell stories on human rights, culture, politics and resistance.
In a special episode on the various meanings of press freedom foreign correspondent Priyanka Borpujari talks to host Urvashi Sarkar about the various meanings of freedom as a journalist and why frontlines need not always imply war and conflict. She explores concepts of not just freedom from oppression but also freedom to practice the profession on her own terms.
Priyanka is an award-winning journalist currently based in Ireland. She has previously reported from Japan, India, El Salvador, Indonesia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and Argentina. Between 2018 and 2019, she walked 1,200 kms across north and northeast India on the Out of Eden Walk with Pulitzer-winning journalist Paul Salopek, which traces the path of human migration. Her journalism has been published in a wide range of international and Indian news publications. She speaks 7 languages.
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In April, the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill was passed in both houses of the Parliament. This new law allows law enforcement agencies to collect a range of private information from people arrested under any offence. The information can be stored for 75 years.
In this episode, Suno India’s Menaka Rao and Suryatapa Mukherjee try to understand the government’s objectives in introducing the law and understand the different dangers that are inherent in the law. Suryatapa talks to Nikita Sonawane, co-founder of Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project, and Praavita Kashyap, a member of Article 21 Trust and Rethink Aadhaar campaign. This is part two in a two-part miniseries. You can listen to the first part of this series here.
References
Home Minister Shri Amit Shah's reply on The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022 in RS. Mahua Moitra's Remarks on Criminal Procedure Bill 2022 । TMC MP Mahua Moitra को LS Speaker की फटकार Mahesh Jethmalani's Remarks | The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022 Decoding DNA Bill: Will storing DNA solve crimes? – Suno India In Refrence vs Ravi @ Toli Malviya on 9 September, 2021 India Enterpise Architecture (IndEA) | Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India. Why state data hubs pose a risk to Aadhaar security | Latest News India – Hindustan Times.
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The World Health Organisation is in the midst of coming up with COVID-19 excess mortality estimates for all the 194 countries that are its members. The Indian government has been placing objections on the way this exercise is being done for a few months now. After a few reports came out on the subject, the Indian government responded in a press release saying that they have a quarrel with the methodology of the WHO.
To understand this entire controversy, Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Amruta Byatnal who broke the story on this issue on March 30. She is a senior editor with Devex, a website on global development, and is based in New Delhi.
References
The true death toll of COVID-19: estimating global excess mortality Exclusive: The pushback against WHO’s imminent COVID-19 excess deaths estimate | Devex Global excess deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic India Is Stalling the WHO’s Efforts to Make Global Covid Death Toll Public – The New York Times In response to New York Times article titled “India Is Stalling the WHO’s Efforts to Make Global Covid Death Toll Public” dated 16th April, 2022
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On March 24, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released the National Tuberculosis Prevalence Survey in India 2019 – 2021. The last such survey took place in 1955-58 after independence. The survey shows that 312 persons per 100000 people in the country have tuberculosis of all forms. The survey also has information on risk factors related to tuberculosis such as malnutrition, diabetes, alcoholism etc and the kind of expenditure a tuberculosis patient undertakes during his or her treatment.
To understand more about this survey and its relevance, Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Sriram S from National Institute of Tuberculosis Research, Chennai who is also the principal investigator of this survey.
To know more about tuberculosis in India, you can listen to our series- Gasping for Breath.
References
National TB Prevalence Survey in India 2019 – 2021 :: Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Prevalence of Pulmonary Tuberculosis – A Baseline Survey In Central India – PMC TUBERCULOSIS SITUATION IN INDIA: MEASURING IT THROUGH TIME* a cluster randomised trial of nutritional support (food rations) to reduce TB incidence in household contacts of patients with microbiologically confirmed pulmo… | BMJ Open How Kerala Is Fighting TB, And Winning https://tbcindia.gov.in/WriteReadData/IndiaTBReport2022/TBAnnaulReport2022.pdf
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The Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on March 28. And by April 6, it was passed in both houses of the Parliament. This new law allows law enforcement agencies to collect a range of private information from people arrested under any offence. The information can be stored for 75 years.
In this episode, host Suryatapa Mukherjee talks to Nikita Sonawane, co-founder of Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project, and Praavita Kashyap, a member of Article 21 Trust and Rethink Aadhaar campaign. We explore who this new law will impact and we tease out its ambiguities. This is part one in a two-part miniseries.
Additional reading:
Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill, 2022 NCRB data: Higher share of Dalits, tribals, Muslims in prison than numbers outside | The Indian Express
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India was ranked at 142 out of 180 countries on Reporters Without Borders’ World press freedom index, in both 2020 and 2021. Since 2020, journalists have been arrested while covering the Hathras gangrape, farmers’ protests, caste violence in Uttarakhand, communal violence in Tripura, and now recently for reporting alleged electoral malpractice in UP elections. But the peak of press clampdowns can be seen in Jammu and Kashmir.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Anuradha Bhasin. She is the Executive Editor of The Kashmir Times. The Centre had imposed an indefinite communication blockade in the region following the Abrogation of Article 370 in 2019. Bhasin’s petition to the Supreme Court was instrumental in partial restoration of communication services in 2020.
Additional reading:
Memory hole: Kashmir news archives vanish | Inquirer 67 journalists arrested, detained, questioned in India in 2020 for their work | The News Minute India's Press Crackdown: The Silencing of Journalists in Kashmir | The Nation
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On January 31, 2022, around 22000 Anganwadi workers and helpers associated with Delhi State Anganwadi Workers and Helpers Union started their protest. They are seeking recognition as government employees, higher pay, better working conditions, and social security mechanisms like health insurance and pension.
While the Anganwadi workers were getting an honorarium of Rs 9678, the helpers were getting Rs 4839. Despite the Delhi government recently raising the honorarium to Rs 11,220 for Anganwadi workers, and Rs 5,610 for helpers, the strike continues. They also complained of long working hours, and the additional work they did during the Covid-19 pandemic with no benefits or protection.
On March 9, the government imposed the Haryana Essential Services Maintenance Act deeming the strike “illegal.” So far, 991 Anganwadi workers have been served termination notices.
In this podcast, Sweta Dash, a Delhi-based independent journalist and reporter speaks to the protesting women and the Delhi State Workers and Helpers Union that is leading the protest. We will hear what these women feel in these tumultuous times of government backlash and how they plan to continue their fight.
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In the news reports from many Western countries, reporters and politicians have repeatedly compared Ukrainian refugees to those from Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. They have used descriptors such as ‘civilised’ and ‘educated’ to differentiate white Ukrainians from refugees of colour. On the ground, this translates to discrimination against people of colour fleeing from Ukraine. While the West is opening their borders and homes to white Ukrainians, Indian and African students are being attacked and beaten.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Shrouk El-Attar, an Egyptian refugee in the UK. They discuss the world’s reaction to Ukraine and how it is different for non-white refugees. Shrouk El-Attar is an engineer, belly dancer and LGBT+ activist who was one of BBC 100 most influential women in the world in 2018, United Nations refugee agency Young Woman of the year 2018, and IET Top 6 young women engineers in the UK in 2019 and in 2020.
Additional reading:
Indian and African refugees tell of ’19th-century racism’ at Ukrainian border | openDemocracy People of colour fleeing Ukraine attacked by Polish nationalists | Guardian UK will pay households $456 a month to host Ukrainian refugees | Al Jazeera How do the UK’s schemes for Ukrainian refugees work? – BBC News Calais migrant camp: Last shelter destroyed – BBC News Child labour, underage marriage and babies sold as Afghan parents face ‘excruciating choices’ – ABC News Pride Without Borders – Bristol Refugee Rights Glitter Cymru – Ethnic minority LGBTQ+ people
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On March 10, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won in four out of five states in the recently concluded assembly elections across Uttar Pradesh, Goa, Manipur, Uttarakhand and Punjab. The Samajwadi Party gained a crucial role as principal opposition party in Uttar Pradesh and Aam Aadmi Party won a thumping majority in Punjab. The Congress party lost sorely and was left faceless across all the States leaving room for endless discussions on the party’s relevance in the national politics. Despite anti-incumbency, the BJP won and how! So what were some of the factors that led to their win in these four states and what does AAP’s win in Punjab mean? How did the women vote in these states? Why did BSP fail to garner any support in Uttar Pradesh?
Suno India Editor-In-Chief, Padma Priya, asked these questions and more to Ajoy Ashirwad, Political Affairs Editor, The Wire who writes extensively on Indian politics. In this deeply insightful conversation he spoke about BJP’s absolute understanding of electoral politics while standing out for its ideological agenda and what the opposition parties need to do better to fight them.
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The Right To Food Campaign, the Centre for Equity Studies and other organisations conducted a survey of food insecurity across 14 Indian states, called the Hunger Watch survey. This is the second such survey since the onset of the pandemic. It was carried out in the months of December 2021 and January 2022.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Anjali Bhardwaj, founder of Satark Nagrik Sangathan and a leading member of the Right To Food Campaign. Anjali explains the stark findings of the survey and what the government can do right now.
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The Centre's Department of Commerce has proposed to replace the Tea Act 1953 with Tea (Promotion and Development) Bill 2022. The Department of Commerce is seeking public comments on the draft Bill till March 9th – the date was extended from 21st January. While the government says that the Bill seeks to modernise the Tea laws and remove parts that have become redundant, trade unions say that the new Bill makes tea estate workers more vulnerable than before.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Virginius Xaxa, a visiting Professor at the Institute for Human Development, New Delhi. Xaxa grew up on a tea estate himself and has written extensively on labour rights and tribal rights in the country. They discuss the history of tea estates, workers’ rights and Tea Bill 2022.
Draft Tea Promotion and Development Bill 2022 Revised.pdf Tea Plantation Workers | Centre for Communication and Education.
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In India, marital rape is not yet a crime and like anywhere else a sensitive topic to deal with for policymakers, rights activists, lawmakers alike. But the data is staggering. If we were to talk of violence against women in absolute numbers, according to the Indian government’s latest National Family Health Survey, about 30% of Indian women aged 18-49 reported having experienced spousal violence. Let that sink in!
In terms of sexual violence, the average Indian woman is 17 times more likely to face sexual violence from her husband than from anyone else, according to the survey of 724,115 women. Marital rape is back in the spotlight as the Delhi High court is listening to a series of petitions demanding that it be criminalised. But what does that actually mean for the feminist movement and women’s rights in the country?
For this episode of The Suno India Show, Padma Priya, editor-in-chief of Suno India spoke with Dr Ranjana Kumari, Director of Centre for Social Research India on this issue.
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In the second episode of the series on the hijab issue in Karnataka’s schools, we talk about how it adversely affects education. As per the recent surveys, there has been an uptick in the number of Muslim girls and women seeking education in schools and colleges across the country. But Muslim girls still have to face prejudice of being conservative, of not being interested in education, among others.
In this episode, Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Saba Hussain, assistant professor in Education and Social Justice, at the University of Birmingham in the UK. She conducted research on school going Muslim girls in Assam. A book on this research was published in 2019 called Contemporary Muslim Girlhoods in India: A Study of Social Justice, Identity and Agency in Assam.
References
Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India https://twitter.com/PriyankaRudrapa/status/1493832129234423808?s=20&t=PG-nv0YSWUVK3ybpLdPt1A Petitioners in hijab row seek postponement of practical exam – The Hindu https://twitter.com/MuslimSpaces/status/1495390625130180609?s=20&t=PG-nv0YSWUVK3ybpLdPt1A Steady uptick in Muslim girls going to schools, colleges. Dr Saba Hussain – School of Education – University of Birmingham
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The hijab controversy has engulfed Karnataka, Many schoolgirls and teachers are not being allowed to enter classrooms with their hijabs on. The Karnataka High Court who is hearing the petitions filed by some Muslim students is asking the question- whether hijab is an essential garment for Muslims. We have a two-part series on this issue. This is the first episode.
In this episode, Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Heba Ahmed, a PhD student from Jawaharlal Nehru University who strongly defends her right to wear a hijab. She also spoke to Dr Zeenat Shaukat Ali, a reputed scholar of Islamic Studies who retired from St Xavier's College, Mumbai. She is also the founder of the World Institute of Islamic Studies for Dialogue, Organisation of Mediation and Gender Justice or Wisdom Foundation. While Dr Zeenat regrets the way the issue has been politicised, as a scholar of Islamic studies, she is of the opinion that wearing hijab is not mandatory in the religion.
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Union Budget 2022-23 comes at a time of rising inflation while we continue to grapple with the pandemic. Total government expenditure has increased by only Rs 1.75 lakh crore, from Rs 37.70 lakh crore in 2021-22 (Revised Estimate) to Rs 39.45 lakh crore in 2022-23. The budget has focused on capital expenditure rather than safety nets for the needy. Rs 7.5 lakh crores has been allocated to capital expenditure, with a 35% increase from last year’s allocation of Rs. 5.5 lakh crores. On the other hand, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act programme for example, is pegged at Rs 73,000 crore, lower than Rs 98,000 crore in 2021-22 (Revised Estimate) and Rs 1,11,000 crore in 2020-21.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Avani Kapur, a fellow at the Centre for Policy Research where she leads the Accountability Initiative. She explains how the budget has accommodated social welfare in terms of health, education, jobs and food security.
Show notes:
Economic Survey Union Budget The Inequality Virus: How The Indian Government Helped Widen Our Wealth Gap – Suno India
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Ever since the pandemic started, a lot of employees are realising that their bosses don’t care enough about their health and safety. People are forced to come to work even when cases are peaking, until they catch the virus themselves or the government forces offices to close. But such experiences reveal something deeper about how employee rights in private companies have been eroded. In fact, it was during the pandemic that the government introduced new labour codes. These four codes are set to replace 29 labour laws.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Sucheta De, the National Vice President of All India Central Council of Trade Unions, and Anjali and Abhishek who share their experiences from work. The latter two are anonymous and these names are aliases. Anjali’s voice has also been changed to protect her identity.
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Only about 65% of the eligible Indian population above the age of 18 has completed both doses of the COVID-19 vaccination. With the third wave setting in, many governments announced different kinds of punitive measures for not having completed vaccines. In Kerala, the state will not provide free treatment for those not vaccinated fully. Some states such as Delhi and Maharashtra have made it compulsory for government employees to be vaccinated. In Haryana entry into banks, malls, and other public places is not allowed if you are not fully vaccinated. In the past, we have had local governments announce stopping of ration, or other social security measures.
Do such measures work? The question becomes even more important as the government announced vaccination for teenagers between the age of 15-18 and an additional protective dose for health workers and senior citizens.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Sunita Sheel Bandewar and Dr Prabir Chatterjee. Sunita is one of the working editors of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics and an independent researcher in the area of bioethics and global health. Dr Chatterjee is a senior public health professional and was director of State Health Resource Centre, a technical support institute for the state’s health ministry.
Show notes
Press briefing on the actions taken, preparedness and updates on COVID-19, Dated: 05.01.2022 No free Covid treatment to unvaccinated, says Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan | Thiruvananthapuram News – Times of India Data | India falls short of December 31 vaccination target – The Hindu AEFI Reports | Ministry of Health and Family Welfare | GOI
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On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Dr Dileep Mavalankar, the Director of the Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar, and Member Secretary of Gujarat State Task Force for COVID.
They discuss how omicron is different from earlier variants of the coronavirus, from symptoms, treatment to precaution. And how this varies depending on comorbidities and vaccination. Tune in to hear how you can take care of yourself in this wave.
Show notes:
Early third wave data from Mumbai: Severity low, oxygen needs low, but puzzling hospitalisation rate 'Who will treat patients?': Staff shortages loom as Omicron infects doctors and hospital workers As patients and staff infect each other, hospitals struggle to contain spread of Covid-19
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Jacklin and Amali, two sisters who battled mental illnesses, are at the heart of an initiative to provide housing to women like them — those who suffer from mental ailments, grief, and homelessness. Their lived experiences breathe love and empathy into this initiative, which recently found a mention in a World Health Organisation report!
The host of this episode, Hariprasad Radhakrishnan, travels to Tiruchi to understand the challenges in access to mental health care in rural areas and why the housing model is unique.
He also spoke with Dr Pallab Kumar Maulik, Deputy Director and Director of Research, the George Institute of Global Health, Javits J. Rajendran, Associate Director, Partnerships and Communication at The Banyan and Rashi, Director (Communication and Strategy) at The Alternative Story to understand the range of sociological factors that make women more vulnerable to mental health illnesses and how the ‘Home Again’ model developed.
Show notes: Gender and women’s mental health
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As Mumbai police and now Delhi police catch alleged masterminds of the apps that virtually auctioned Muslim women, what took so long? Is it simply public pressure that led to the breakthroughs this time around? Or is the delay due to the difficulty of catching anonymous perpetrators online?
For an answer to these questions, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Karan Saini, a security researcher and a public interest technologist for this episode of The Suno India Show. Karan takes us through his own research of Sulli Deals and Bulli Bai, and what the police can do in this case involving US-based internet platforms.
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On this episode of Suno India, reporter Prashant Rathod profiles a rap band from Amravati. The band, Raptoli, includes Vipin Tatad, Tausif Khan, Mangesh Ingole and Gaurav Ingole. All four have grown up in Amravati's slums living the hard life as daily wage labourers.
The group sings about living in a slum, casteism, communalism, living in poverty, and even touches on national issues such as the farmers’ protest, lockdown woes of labourers and other issues.
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Indian films with hero cops often glorify police violence. At times, encounter killings are celebrated by the public at large. According to NHRC data, there are five custodial deaths in India every day. The minister of state for home affairs, Nityanand Rai has said that there have been 151 custodial deaths in 2021.
On this episode of the Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Ameya Bokil, a legal researcher and co-founder of Criminal Justice and Police Accountability Project. They discuss how custodial violence started in India, why it is so common and what some of the legal remedies are. Tune in.
Show notes:
Death Due To Custodial Torture: State Government To Pay 5 Lakhs To Family Of Minor Victim; Madras High Court Adjourns The Matter | Live Law Problems of Violence, States of Terror: Torture in Colonial India – Anupama Rao Police’s Continued Victimisation of ‘Denotified’ Tribal Communities Can No Longer Go Unchallenged | The Wire Over-policing in India is not the answer to COVID-19 | OpenGlobalRights
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In November this year, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare released the National Health Accounts estimates for 2017-18. These estimates reveal that the total government health expenditure has decreased from 3.8% in 2016-17 to 3.3% in 2017-18 and that the share of government health expenditure in the Gross Domestic Product or GDP of the country has increased to 1.35% in 2017-18 from 1.15% in 2013-14.
According to these estimates, the out of pocket expenditure or money spent by households on healthcare decreased from 58.7% in 2016-17 to 48.8% in 2017-18.
To make sense of the national health accounts estimates 2017-18 and to get a health economist’s perspective, host Kunika Balhotra spoke with Dr Indranil Mukhopadhyay.
Dr Mukhopadhyay is an Associate Professor at OP Jindal Global University, Sonipat. He has a PhD in public health and health economics from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi.
He has led several research studies supported by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India; WHO, International Labour Organisation (ILO) and has several international and national publications.
Show Notes National Health Accounts Estimates
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Over 10% of undertrials in Indian jails were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. The Supreme Court has said that the bail provision under UAPA is “comparatively less stringent” than that under the NDPS Act. Majority of people booked under this law are not traffickers.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, we will see how the NDPS Act affects not just the few celebrity names that pop up on news headlines, but thousands of common people who languish in Indian jails. Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Dr Atul Ambekar, a psychiatrist and a Professor at the National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre, AIIMS, New Delhi. They discuss how the criminalisation of drug use discourages those who need help from seeking it.
Show notes:
As Modi govt plans NDPS Act changes, 27,072 drug case undertrials in India rot in jails | The Print From Addict to Convict: The Working of the NDPS Act (1985) in Punjab Calcutta HC Grants Bail To NDPS Accused In Custody For 6.5 Yrs Noting Inordinate Delay In Trial, Violation Of Article 21 | Live Law Portugal’s Drug Laws: Decriminalisation in action | The Feed SBS
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The Cabinet has approved a bill to repeal the three farm laws in the upcoming winter session. In this episode of The Suno India Show, we will get an expert view on why the laws are being repealed and what’s in store for the future of farmers.
Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Surinder S Jodhka, an author and a Sociology professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University. They explore how the repeal will help BJP in upcoming state elections, how Sikhs played a crucial role in the protests and what are the reforms needed in agriculture now.
Show Notes:
Woman farm leader reacts to laws repealed, fight for MSP guarantee to continue | TSIS
Why are the farmers of Punjab protesting? Surinder S Jodhka
Farm laws repeal wasn't about UP, Punjab elections. The answer lies in what Savarkar wrote | The Print
Daasi - Nooran Sisters (Full Video) Guru Ravidass Bhajan
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The school closures in India due to the COVID-19 Pandemic have been among the longest in the world. For close to 18 months, 265 million students have not been to school.
The report, “A FUTURE AT STAKE -Organizing the Education Recovery for the Most Vulnerable” states that India is facing an education emergency like none other since independence. The report was released by The National Coalition on the Education Emergency (NCEE), a network of like-minded organisations that have come together to address the problems created by school closure for the past nearly two years.
And as the schools are gradually re-opening, a new concern has crept up in the minds of educators and parents alike, how will children cope up with the vast gap that has developed in their academics?
This is the second episode in the two-part series on schools reopening all over the country. In this episode of The Suno India Show, host Kunika Balhotra speaks with Dr Sajitha Bashir, the author of the report, to understand what steps schools and governments should take to address this education emergency.
Dr Bashir is a former Adviser in the Office of the Global Director of the Education Practice in the World Bank, where she led the work on Digital Skills. She co-authored the regional publication The Converging Technology Revolution and Human Capital: Potential and Implications for South Asia. Prior to joining the World Bank, she was head of the national research and evaluation unit within the Government of India’s national District Primary Education Program. She is a core member of the National Coalition on the Education Emergency in India.
Show Notes
A FUTURE AT STAKE -Organizing the Education Recovery for the Most Vulnerable
Annual Status of Education Report (Rural) 2021
Locked Out: Emergency Report on School Education
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For about 18 months, children in India have not gone to school. The school closures have been among the longest in the world. This month, many state and local governments opened physical schools for children. Yet, private schools have not fully reopened as parents are reluctant to send their children to school and want to continue online education.
We at Suno India want to address the various questions that parents, school staff and administrators have in mind when it comes to school reopening. How do we ensure that children, school staff and people at home are safe. What should be a cause of worry and what should not be
To answer these questions, Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, a medical doctor who works in the field of public health policy and health systems. He has co-authored the book Till We Win: India's Fight Against The COVID-19 pandemic, with Dr Randeep Guleria, the director of AIIMS, New Delhi and Dr Gagandeep Kang, professor of Microbiology at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. He has recently been writing and tweeting extensively advocating for schools to reopen.
Show Notes:
Delhi’s private schools take cautious steps towards reopening
Online Education: कोरोना काल में कैसे पिछड़े स्कूल जाने वाले बच्चे
Delhi’s private schools take cautious steps towards reopening
https://www.theindiaforum.in/article/reopening-schools?utm_source=website&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=category&utm_content=Covid-19
Kids and COVID: why young immune systems are still on top
Science Brief: Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in K-12 Schools and Early Care and Education Programs - Updated
Over 70% patients above 40 yrs in both waves: ICMR
SARS-CoV-2 antibody seroprevalence in India, August–September, 2020: findings from the second nationwide household serosurvey
6th Delhi sero survey shows 97% prevalence of antibodies
covid-19 update
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/question-and-answers-hub/q-a-detail/q-a-children-and-masks-related-to-covid-19
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November 19, 2021, on Guru Nanak Jayanti, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that the three controversial farm laws will be repealed in the upcoming winter session of the Parliament.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Jasbir Kaur Nat, a state committee member of Punjab Kissan Union. Jasbir was on a bus to Chandigarh to organise more women protestors when she heard the announcement. She says that it is a partial victory as farmers have also been demanding Minimum Support Price (MSP) guarantee. Tune in.
Show notes:
Samyukt Kisan Morcha welcomes repealing of farm laws Centre brings in new law to tackle Delhi air pollution, Rs 1 crore fine, 5 years jail for non-compliance
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In December 2020, three academic publishing giants—Elsevier, American Chemical Society and Wiley—moved the Delhi High Court against Sci-Hub and LibGen. These pirate websites make academic papers free for all. Academic publishers do not pay authors and make more profits than tech giants. Developing countries like India cannot afford the bulk of this research and the prices keep rising. India has the second-largest number of Sci-Hub users in the world.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to SciHub founder Alexandra Elbakyan, her lawyer Nilesh Jain, science activist and Newsclick editor Prabir Purkayastha who is an intervenor in the case, and also Suno India editor Menaka Rao who is an avid user of SciHub and LibGen.
Tune in as we explore what this case means for the future of Indian research.
Show notes:
Is the staggeringly profitable business of scientific publishing bad for science? The Guardian Should Knowledge Be Free? Medlife Crisis Lawrence Liang: “The Delhi University Photocopy Case”
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The Indian food industry is the third-largest in the world. But the country’s awareness related to food safety is severely lacking.
When you enter a store and pick up a food item, do you wonder if the claims made on the label are true? To find out who regulates India’s food safety and how effective the regulatory mechanisms are, Suno India's Co-founder Tarun Nirwan spoke to Ramesh Bhat.
Bhat is a former scientist working at the Drug Toxicology Research Centre at the National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad. He has worked with the World Health Organization and other United Nations agencies in various aspects of food safety. He has also consulted government organizations from Asian countries on how they can enhance food safety mechanisms. He has co-edited a book called Street Foods on street foods of the world.
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Almost 75% of Indian farmers are women and they produce up to 80% of India’s food, according to British non profit group Oxfam. But one-third of this vast number are unpaid laborers working on family farms. Women own just 12.8% of the country’s land. Without land, women are not officially recognised as farmers. This proved to be an immense problem in the pandemic where they missed out on government relief schemes.
Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch or MAKAAM released a study of the challenges faced by women farmers in the context of COVID-19, ‘Long road to recovery.’ On this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to MAKAAM’s researchers Gargie Mangulkar, Manavi Das and Roshan Rathod about the needs of women farmers today. They explore how the already vulnerable state of women farmers in India has been worsened by the pandemic.
Show notes:
Pioneering women farmers in India | BBC Hindi A Female Farmer Describing Women’s Plight in Agriculture | Centre for Civil Society Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on PM Garib Kalyan Yojana MAKAAM Case story: Tiya Zhabarkha Bhosle
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A recent global study conducted by researchers Deepak Malghan and Hema Swaminathan titled “Global trends in intra-house gender inequality” in 45 countries. They found that there is no single nation where wives earn as much as their husbands, even when both are employed.
The study covers the time period of four decades, between 1973 and 2016 with a sample size of 2.85 million households across 45 countries. According to the study, the intra-household gender inequality has declined by 20%.
To understand more about the study, income inequality and the differences in engagement in the labor market amongst spouses, Kunika Balhotra spoke with Hema Swaminathan, one of the authors of the study.
Hema is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Public Policy, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. Her broad interests are in the areas of poverty and inequality using a gender perspective.
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Firecracker bans help cities breathe easy, but it’s not the case for vulnerable communities dependent on the industry. As politicians play it safe and do not want to rock the boat and develop a transition plan, workers and small business owners are left to bear the brunt of clampdowns on fireworks imposed by State governments and local administrations.
In this episode of the Suno India show, Hariprasad Radhakrishnan travels to Sivakasi, the fireworks manufacturing hub of India and speaks with labourers and factory owners grappling with the lack of demand for fireworks.
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A break from schools due to Covid-19 serves as a blessing in disguise for Irula tribal children who get to learn traditional ways of life from their elders through village elder programmes.
For this episode of The Suno India Show, Independent Journalist, Arathi Menon, travelled to the Nilgiris to see how in the absence of schools for long periods of time during Covid-19, tribal elders are imparting traditional knowledge to the children. The elders take the children to the forest and teach them about medicinal plants, traditional games and much more.
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Project 39A’s report Deathworthy explores the impact of the death penalty on the mental health of those receiving it and why many death row convicts have a fragile mental state to begin with. On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Maitreyi Misra, lead author of the report and founding member of Project 39A at the National Law University. This episode also includes the inputs of Dr Pratima Murthy, Director of NIMHANS, and Dr Sanjeev Jain, Professor of Psychiatry at NIMHANS, who spoke at the report’s release event.
We trace how childhood trauma and mental illness can culminate into a death sentence later in life. How our legal system fails to detect mental illnesses and disabilities of convicts, and how our prisons fail to cater to the mental health of death row inmates.
Show notes:
Detailed Analysis of Section 84 of Indian Penal Code, 1860 Section 30 in The Prisoners Act, 1900 328, 329, 330 CRPC |Procedure in case of accused being lunatic SK Nair vs State Of Punjab on 5 November, 1996 State Of Orissa vs Kalia @ Debabrata Maharana on 19 February, 2008 India joins nations which don’t execute mentally ill convicts
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Imagine you are accused in a murder case. And the courts acquit you. But now for the rest of your life, every time someone Googles your name, they see that there is a chance you murdered someone. Or maybe you are a celebrity who drove while drunk and you paid your fine and did your time. But now every time you do a new project, entertainment news sites remind everyone about that time you drove drunk. Or maybe you are a victim of sexual abuse whose nude photos were uploaded online. Can it be scrubbed clean? Here comes the Right To Be Forgotten.
On this episode of the Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee explores the Right To Be Forgotten, what it means and what are the cases in which it might be justified. She speaks with legal researcher and activist Dr Usha Ramanathan and celebrity Ashutosh Kaushik’s lawyer Ishanee Sharma.
Additional reading:
Brut India: Ashutosh Kaushik Wants His Past To Be Erased The Nerdwriter explains original European case The Daily Guardian: History of Right to be Forgotten in India {Name Redacted} vs The Registrar General on 23 January, 2017 RTBF case of actress whose nude audition tapes were uploaded online
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The Centre submitted an affidavit in the Supreme Court last week, saying no to conducting a caste census. It was in response to a writ petition by the Maharashtra government to collect OBC data in the state while conducting census 2021. On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee explores the history of the caste census, how it began, why it stopped, and why demands for it are growing.
She speaks to political scientist and TISS professor Ashwani Kumar, president of All India OBC Students Association Gowd Kiran Kumar, and senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research D. Shyam Babu. To hear them explain the history of reservation in our previous episode, please listen to: OBC Bill: A history of reservation and how we got here.
Additional reading:
Centre’s Affidavit to Supreme Court on Caste Census How ‘Shudra’ And OBC Categories Differ? The importance of caste census and its political implications
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Despite a relatively good crop of saffron last year, overall saffron production in Kashmir has been on a decline for years now. Unpredictable rainfall and dry weather due to climate change have played havoc with the production of saffron in Kashmir. The Valley may lose one of its most precious spices for which it is known across the world. Cultivated and harvested in Pampore township of south Kashmir, more than 30,000 families are associated with saffron farming.
Through the National Saffron Mission, the government introduced the Sprinkle irrigation technique a few years ago but the pumps installed could not last long. High-grade Kashmiri saffron has been also hit by adulteration & currently a less expensive Iranian variety is also sold in the valley.
In this podcast, journalist Irfan Amin Malik reports from Pampore town in Kashmir valley on dwindling saffron production.
Additional reading:
India International Kashmir Saffron Trading Centre (IIKSTC) Government PPT on the decline in saffron production Kashmir turning saffron! Kesar spice yield at a 10-year high in Valley National Saffron Mission
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127th Constitution Amendment Bill 2021 aka the OBC Bill was unanimously passed by the Parliament, a remarkable feat in an otherwise difficult session. It has once again brought up debates about reservation. But to understand our present, we must know our past. India has had reservation since the 1800s. In fact, experts say that our reservation policy influenced the United States’s better known Affirmative Action.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to political scientist and TISS professor Ashwani Kumar, president of All India OBC Students Association Gowd Kiran Kumar, and senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research D. Shyam Babu. They explore the history of reservation in India and how the current policy came to be.
Moments in a History of Reservations
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In Gujarat’s Amreli town, people working with COVID-19 patients, and those working in crematoriums or graveyards do not believe the minuscule official count of COVID-19 deaths- a mere 102.
The Reporters’ Collective analysed municipality death registers from 68 of 170 Gujarat towns. The data shows that in just April 2021 the number of excess deaths is higher than the state’s official death toll since the pandemic first began.
Shreegireesh Jalihal and Tapasya, journalists with The Reporters’ Collective speak to experts to figure out what the data means and how authorities could have possibly fudged Covid data. The episode explains why we urgently need numbers of all-cause mortality from government authorities to analyse the possible extent of Covid-19 deaths since 2020.
Beyond numbers, locals from Amreli recount the horrors they faced at the peak of the pandemic’s second wave.
Show notes:
COVID-19 Tracker | Gujarat Three New Estimates of India’s All-Cause Excess Mortality during the COVID-19 Pandemic Excess mortality in India from June 2020 to June 2021 during the COVID pandemic: death registration, health facility deaths, and survey data
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Desperate scenes of Afghans trying to flee the Taliban takeover of their homeland have shocked the world. But refugees have been trickling into India even during the past twenty years. They say they are free in India in a way that they never could be back home. However, Afghan refugees have been protesting outside the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Delhi for several days, demanding better opportunities.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to refugees living in Delhi, Jamshed, Zahra Mohammadi and Valy Ahadi. They have all fled to India from the Taliban’s violence over the last decade. As they worry for terrified relatives back home, they feel grateful to have made it to India. But they say being a refugee here is like being stuck in time, unable to move forward. It is a struggle simply to sustain themselves.
Additional reading:
Spiralling back into the past: Afghanistan then and now Watch | ‘Wake Up UNHCR’: Afghan Nationals Protest in New Delhi Afghan Folk Song
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In July, the interstate border between Assam and Mizoram saw an unprecedented blaze. Police of both the state fought each other. Since then, series of chaotic incidents started happening in the area. But the seeds of this conflict had been sown decades ago.
In this episode of the Suno India Show, Chandrani Sinha interviewed two eminent journalists Adam Saprinsanga from Mizoram and Sushanta Talukdar from Assam to decode the underlying border crisis and understand the perspectives of the people.
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For this episode of The Suno India show we have guest host Urvashi Sarkar talking to Former BBC editor for South and Central Asia, Nazes Afroz. He provides a historical sweep to understanding the current devastation of Afghanistan.
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On July 4th, the Sulli Deals app invited users to find their deal of the day, a Muslim woman they could claim to own. The app included the Twitter image and handle of the woman, which could then be tweeted by the user as their very own Sulli Deal. It was gone by the next day after an uproar online. However, one month and two FIRs later, we still do not know who the offenders are.
This is not the first time that Muslim women have been “auctioned” online. Earlier in May, the youtube channel Liberal Doge live-streamed photos of Muslim women from social media, and asked viewers to bid on them. Even earlier, as article 370 was abrogated, Hindu men were celebrating online that they could now have Kashmiri brides, with pictures of light-skinned women in hijab.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to pilot Hana Mohsin Khan, student and political activist Afreen Fatima, and student and poet Nabiya Khan. Targeted by the Sulli Deals app, they speak about the cost of being a visible and vocal Muslim woman in India today.
Additional reading:
‘Get A Wife From Kashmir’: Article 370 News Has Sparked A Horrible Wave Of Misogyny Women Abused, Stalked, ‘Auctioned’ Online On Eid. But They’re Refusing To Be Silenced.
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In 1998, India had its first intersex MLA, Shabnam Bano. In 1999, we had our first transgender mayor, Kamla Jaan but she was ousted from her post by the courts as it was reserved for women. In 2020, India’s first LGBT cell was started by the Nationalist Congress Party. It is headed by Priya Patil, a trans woman.
In this episode of Pride & Prejudice, host Suryatapa Mukherjee explores the growth of Queer politics in India, in conversation with Priya Patil. Priya joined the NCP in 2019. She had earlier contested civic body elections in Mumbai.
Pride & Prejudice is our series on all things LGBTQIA. LGBTQIA stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex and asexual. We use ‘Queer’ as an umbrella term for all these identities.
Additional reading:
India’s Had More Transgender Mayors Than We Originally Thought
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In this episode, host Padma Priya spoke to Dr Kaustubh Joag about increasing incidence of mental health issues like depression and anxiety in post-covid phase and how to deal with them? He also spoke about when one should reach out for professional help.
Dr Kaustubh Joag is a psychiatrist by training and a practicing psychiatrist in Pune since last 15 years. He has special interest in common mental health issues like depression and anxiety. He has interest in community mental health research, ethics in research and rights oriented clinical practice. He also works as a Senior Research Fellow at Centre for Mental Health Law and Policy, Indian Law Society, Pune. He co-leads large scale community based mental health intervention called- ‘Atmiyata’. He has completed the ‘International Diploma in Mental Health, Human Rights, and Law’ at Indian Law Society, Pune.
You can also join ‘India COVID Survivors group’ on Telegram.
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Recently, media organisations across the world published a series of reports exposing Pegasus, a spyware developed by NSO Group in Israel. They found that governments have been using Pegasus to spy on their own journalists, activists and opposition leaders. Amnesty International’s forensic team has confirmed these findings. After mounting global and national pressure, the NSO has temporarily blocked several of its government clients from using its spyware.
Earlier in 2019, researchers from the University of Toronto had contacted lawyers and activists from the Bhima Koregaon case, alerting them to the presence of Pegasus on their phones. Among the 300 phones suspected to be infiltrated in India, forty belong to journalists. The Supreme Court will be hearing a plea from senior journalists against the hack.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Anushka Jain, associate counsel of Surveillance and Transparency at the Internet Freedom Foundation. This is a deep dive on what makes Pegasus special, whether it is accommodated by our laws on surveillance, and how it is affecting Indian citizens.
Additional reading:
NSO Group: What we know about the secretive company behind the Pegasus spy software. Indian Activists, Lawyers Were ‘Targeted’ Using Israeli Spyware Pegasus
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Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, the household incomes, savings and debt have been drastically impacted. For many households, the pandemic has led to a depletion of financial assets such as bank deposits, mutual funds investments among others.
The Reserve Bank of India estimates show that the household financial savings were at 8.2 percent of Gross Domestic Product or GDP in the third quarter – that is between July to September 2020. This is a major dip compared to the first quarter when the household savings stood at 21% of the GDP and the second quarter when the household savings stood at 10.4 percent of GDP.
To understand more about the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on household savings and debt, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer spoke with Professor Biswajit Nag.
Prof Nag is the Head of Economics Division at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade. He also served in the Poverty and Development Division of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.
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Queer sexualities have been decriminalised and Pride parades are ceremoniously covered by the news media. But can everyone really march with pride? In this episode of Pride & Prejudice, we trace the evolution of Pride from Stonewall Riots in the United States, to NRC-CAA protests in India. Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Pride organisers from Visakhapatnam, Guwahati, Hyderabad and Kolkata.
Shivakumar is the co-founder of Nestam and has been trying to organise Pride in Visakhapatnam for years. Nuzhat Nasreen Islam is the co-founder of Xomonnoy and she organises Pride in Guwahati. Rudra Kishore Mandal was part of the organising meeting for the first ever Pride walk in India which happened in Kolkata in 1999, and they still organise Pride in Kolkata. Dr. Karthik Bittu has helped organise Pride in various cities like Hyderabad, Bangalore and Delhi.
They speak about their experiences with the police, differences in politics within the community and what Pride really is about.
Additional reading:
Mumbai Pride: Over 50 People Charged With Sedition for Slogans Supporting Sharjeel Imam Assam NRC: What next for 1.9 million ‘stateless’ Indians? Citizenship Rights are LGBTQ rights: Thousands gather for Mumbai Pride Sylvia Rivera’s “Y’all Better Quiet Down" Speech 1973
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There are more than 18 million people from India living abroad, a recent report from the United Nations said. The country receives huge amounts of money from the Non-Resident Indian workforce and entrepreneurs.
But the law that governed emigration- that is the Emigration Act, 1983- is nearly 40 years old. The National Democratic Front government has put out a draft Emigration Bill in 2019, aiming to replace the 1983 Act. The draft Bill of 2021, which does not have many changes, is expected to be taken up in the ongoing monsoon session of the Parliament.
Suno India’s Jaison G spoke to Professor S Irudaya Rajan, an expert in this issue and senior journalist, Jayanth Jacob who have been following the issue of emigration for decades to understand the new Bill and the issues surrounding emigration.
Additional reading: International Migration 2020 Highlights
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On July 6, Father Stan Swamy, a Jesuit priest and tribal rights activist died in custody. Last year, he was arrested in a case related to 2017 Bhima Koregaon violence in Pune. Father Swamy had Parkinson’s disease and was detected with Covid-19 in May.
Why is it hard for someone as old as Stan Swamy to get bail. Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to advocate Abhinav Sekhri, a criminal lawyer based in Delhi, and is on retainer with Internet Freedom Foundation. He writes extensively on criminal law and runs a blog called Proof of Guilt. He recently wrote a paper on the bail regime in the country and how it is antithetical to the core principle in our criminal justice system- that an accused is innocent until proven guilty.
Show notes:
Elgaar parishad case: Stan Swamy dead The Bailable v. Non-Bailable Classification in Indian Criminal Procedure by Abhinav Sekhri :: SSRN https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=2801004 The Proof of Guilt The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 National Investigation Agency vs Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali on 2 April, 2019 Union Of India vs KA Najeeb on 1 February, 2021 NCRB report: Sedition cases up in 2019 but conviction at all-time low Arrested activists: 67% ended in acquittal or discharge under UAPA Acts
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On World Population Day, 2021 Uttar Pradesh’s Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath announced the Uttar Pradesh Population Draft Bill 2021. The idea behind this bill is to bring down the fertility rate to 2.1 by 2026 and 1.9 by 2030.
The UP Population draft bill has seen criticism from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who believe that it will adversely affect the demographic balance of the state. The introduction of this bill has sparked debate about the effectiveness of population control using sterilization.
To contextualize the bill and to find out its future implications, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer, Kunika Balhotra spoke with Dr Abhijit Das. Dr Abhijit is the Director of the Centre for Health and Social Justice, in India and Clinical Assistant Professor of the Department of Global Health at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA.
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The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting issued a notification in June seeking comments on proposed changes to the Cinematograph Act, 1952. The most controversial feature of the draft Amendment Bill is that it allows the Union government to call for the re-examination of any film. If passed, this would mean that even after a film is certified and cleared by the Central Board of Film Certification, the government can reverse its decision or ask for the film to be reexamined.
This is the latest in a slew of changes for filmmakers in India. In April, the Film Certification Appellate Tribunal was dissolved by the Ministry of Law and Justice. Previously, if the CBFC did not certify a film or asked for changes that filmmakers did not agree with, they could go to the FCAT for redressal. Now they will have to move to the High Courts.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to filmmaker Leena Manimekalai about these developments for the Indian film industry. Despite receiving awards and acclaim in film festivals, Leena has repeatedly run into trouble with certification. These new changes, she says, have cast doubts on her future as a filmmaker in this country.
Additional reading:
Cinematograph (Amendment) Bill 2021 Shyam Benegal Committee Report 2016 Justice Mukul Committee Report 2013
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In June, the Indian government announced that they have detected an offshoot of the Delta variant, which they named the Delta Plus variant. The Delta variant was first found in India and has been attributed to the surge in cases during the second wave of Covid-19 in the country.
What do we know about the Delta variant and how much should we be worried about the Delta plus variant? To know more, Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Shahid Jameel, an internationally acclaimed virologist and the director of Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University, in Sonipat, Haryana.
Additional reading:
INSACOG Bulletin 18 June, 2021 INSACOG Weekly Bulletin June 28, 2021 Delta and Delta Plus Variants: Frequently Asked Questions Covid: Cases in UK rise above 30,000 for first time since January 2 more cases of Delta plus variant in MP
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द सुनो इंडिया शो के इस एपिसोड में पिछले महीने चर्चा में रहे बकस्वाहा के जंगल और हीरा खनन के मुद्दे को समझने की कोशिश की गयी है।
बकस्वाहा, मध्य प्रदेश में छतरपुर जिले की एक तहसील है। यहाँ हीरा का एक भण्डार मिला है। अनुमान है कि यहाँ 3.4 करोड़ कैरेट के हीरे हैं। लेकिन इस हीरे को पाने के लिए कम से कम 2.15 लाख छोटे-बड़े पेड़ काटे जाने की ज़रूरत होगी।
हीरे के इस भण्डार को बंदर डायमंड ब्लॉक कहा जाता है। 2019 में हुई एक नीलामी के तहत यह डायमंड ब्लॉक बिरला समूह की एक कंपनी एसेल माइनिंग एंड इंडस्ट्रीज लिमिटेड को खनन लीज़ पर मिला है। इससे पहले यहाँ रियो टिंटों जैसी बहुराष्ट्रीय कंपनी हीरे की खोज कर रही थी।
पेड़ों की कटाई से संबंधित खबरों ने प्रमुखता से मध्य प्रदेश के अखबारों में जगह पाई। कोरोना की दूसरी लहर के दौरान लोगों को ऑक्सीज़न के लिए परेशान होते देखा गया। इन खबरों ने बकस्वाहा और उसके आस-पास के युवाओं को परेशान किया। उन्हें ऐसा लगा कि ऑक्सीज़न के प्राकृतिक स्रोतों यानी पेड़ों की रक्षा की जाना चाहिए। इसी सोच से सेव बकस्वाहा फॉरेस्ट नाम के यह अभियान अचानक सुर्खियों में आ गया।
इस एपिसोड में हमने उन युवाओं से बात की जो इस अभियान में शुरुआत से जुड़े हैं। संकल्प जैन और निदा रहमान से बात चीत करके हम इस अभियान के कुछ पहलुओं को जानने की कोशिश की।
स्थानीय लोगों और स्थानीय पत्रकार से भी बात चीत की ताकि इस अभियान को लेकर जमीनीन स्थिति का जायजा लिया जा सके। शिवेन्दा शुक्ला, जगदीश यादव ने हमें इस बारे में बताया।
लेकिन इस अभियान के अलावा इस परियोजना और नीलामी पर भी कई सवाल हैं। ये सवाल कानूनी हैं। जिस जंगल को नीलाम किया गया है उसकी कानूनी स्थिति क्या है? इसके बारे में हमने एडवोकेट अनिल गर्ग से बात की और इससे जुड़े कई पहलुओं को समझा।
बकस्वाहा का मामला राष्ट्रीय हरित प्राधिकरण यानी एनजीटी में भी उठाया गया है। इस संबंध में हमने एक पिटीशनर पुष्पराग से भी बात की।
इस परियोजना के कई अन्य पहलुओं और इसके खिलाफ चल रहे अभियान को मुकम्मल तौर पर समझने के लिए छतरपुर वन मण्डल के वन अधिकारियों से भी बात की लेकिन उन्होंने अपना आधिकारिक पक्ष रखने से इंकार कर दिया।
इस शो का संचालन, सत्यम श्रीवास्तव ने किया जो पंद्रह सालों से सामाजिक आंदोलनों से जुड़े हैं और सामयिक विषयों पर लिखते हैं।
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The new ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’(ONORC) scheme comes with the promise of making access to food relief easier across the country. The scheme will allow for inter and intra state portability in accessing the public distribution system starting from July 31. With a limited number of electronic point of sale machines and the error ridden Aadhar based biometric authentication system how effective will the ONORC scheme be?
To know more about the One Nation One Ration Card Scheme and the concerns surrounding it, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’ Research and Communications Officer reached out to Reetika Khera.
Reetika is an Indian Development Economist and is currently working as an Associate Professor of Economics at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. She writes extensively on topics such as NREGA, the Public Distribution System (PDS) and programs which affect vulnerable sections of the Indian population.
Show Notes
‘One Nation, One Ration card’ to be a reality soon, says PM Narendra Modi Migration in India and the impact of the lockdown on migrants Without Aadhaar, without identity Credibility and Portability? : Lessons from CORE PDS Reforms in Chhattisgarh Rajasthan’s living dead: Thousands of pensioners without Aadhaar or bank accounts struck off lists
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In May 2021, Whatsapp moved to the Delhi High Court against the Indian government. The government’s new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines And Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 ask messaging platforms to establish traceability, and Whatsapp says that this would be a breach of the right to privacy. The Puttaswamy judgment of 2017 for the first time declared privacy as a fundamental right of Indian citizens. The Whatsapp case would be the first real world test of that judgment.
This episode is the second in our two-part series on traceability. In our previous episode titled, ‘Centre’s rule to trace Whatsapp texts threatens privacy’, we explained how technologically it may not be possible to have traceability without removing end-to-end encryption. In this episode, we will take a look at the legal parameters of this case. Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke with lawyers Gunjan Chawla and Prasanna S.
Gunjan is the Programme Manager of the Technology and National Security team at the Centre for Communication Governance. Prasanna is a coder turned lawyer who has represented petitioners in the cases challenging the use of Aadhar before the Supreme Court.
Additional reading:
Right to privacy not fundamental right: Centre to Supreme Court India | Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism Journalist, activist jailed under NSA for 45 days over cow posts. In Manipur, it's not unusual The FBI's Anom Stunt Rattles the Encryption Debate
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The new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines And Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021 were notified in February 2021. The rules mandate that messaging apps like Whatsapp must identify the source of criminal messages and share it with law enforcement agencies.
The Special Rapporteurs of the United Nations wrote to the Indian government these rules violate the right to privacy and freedom of speech and expression enshrined in the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights. Whatsapp has moved the Delhi High Court, contesting the rule on tracing the source of messages. They say that it violates the landmark Puttaswamy judgment of the Supreme Court which declared privacy as a fundamental right.
But is it even technologically possible for Whatsapp to trace the source of every text on its platform? This is the first of a two-part series on the traceability clause of the government’s new IT rules. In this episode, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Dr Debayan Gupta, an assistant professor of computer science at Ashoka University, and Anand Venkatanarayanan, a strategic adviser at cybersecurity firm DeepStrat. They explain how enabling traceability could mean disabling encryption. Encryption keeps all our messages secret, even from Whatsapp.
This episode is supported by dialogue. Dialogue has not exercised any editorial control over the contents of this podcast.
Additional reading:
Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code Rules 2021 WhatsApp moves Delhi high court against new guidelines UP Police Lodge FIR Against Lucknow Hospital Which Put Up 'Oxygen Shortage' Notice Calls for backdoor access to WhatsApp as Five Eyes nations meet Amid controversy with WhatsApp, RS Prasad defends digital media guidelines Former Twitter employees charged with spying for Saudi Arabia by digging into the accounts of kingdom critics Justice KS Puttaswamy (Retd) vs Union Of India 2018
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In May this year, Indian Medical Association officials filed a police complaint against yoga guru Baba Ramdev for making defamatory statements about allopathic doctors. Just a few months before that, the association was protesting against a Central government notification allowing Ayurveda postgraduates to conduct some surgical procedures. In the meanwhile, the government has been promoting traditional medicine products, including Coronil for immunity against COVID-19 for which there is no evidence.
Traditional medicine, be it Ayurveda or Homeopathy, is very popular in India. In this episode, Suno India’s Padmapriya DVL and Menaka Rao report on the various aspects related to the debate related to traditional medicine, from the safety of drugs to the legitimacy of these traditional forms of medicine.
This episode features Dr Ritu Priya Mehrotra, professor at the Centre of Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, Dr Sanjay Nagral, a Mumbai-based gastrointestinal and liver surgeon and on the editorial board of Indian Journal of Medical Ethics, and Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, a Kochi-based hepatologist who has been revealing how unregulated traditional medicines are causing liver injuries in people.
Additional reading:
Union Budget 2020-21 places the AYUSH Sector on a sustainable path of growth, say sectoral The Cure – fiftytwo.in Traditional Indian Medicine Guidelines To Build COVID Immunity Published General guidelines for Safety/toxicity evaluation of Ayurvedic formulations Can Ayush cure Covid? AYUSH for COVID-19: Science or Superstition? Priya R, Sujatha V – Indian J Public Health Research conducted by Kovai scientists on rheumatic patients shortlisted for prestigious award | Coimbatore News Clinical outcomes histopathological patterns and chemical analysis of Ayurveda and herbal medicines associated with severe liver injury- A single center experience from Southern India
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On August 5, 2019, the Narendra Modi led government abrogated Article 370 of the Constitution, which gave special status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. A lockdown imposed then, was extended after the COVID-19 pandemic struck the country.
Modi had promised that industrial growth will flourish in the region after the abrogation. Suno India’s Irfan Amin Malik visits some industrial areas in Kashmir, speaks and finds out that it is far from reality. The lack of political will, outdated industrial policies, political conflict and electricity crisis are not letting industries grow in this region
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Two years since the abrogation of article 370, the indian government is making moves to hold elections in the union territories of J&K and Ladakh. But in a region known for conflict, what is it like to be queer? Dr Aijaz says that not only is it difficult to build safe spaces for queer people in Kashmir, access to these spaces are impeded by curfews, communication blackouts and violence.
This is the second episode of our miniseries ‘Pride & Prejudice’ on all things LGBTQIA+ in India. Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Dr Aijaz, the founder of Sonzal Welfare Trust. Sonzal is an NGO for LGBTQIA+ people in Kashmir that provides a range of legal support, mental health programs, crisis intervention and vocational training. Aijaz speaks about the history of queer culture in Kashmir, the daily realities of queers in Kashmir, as well as the impact of queerphobia, Islamophobia and regional conflict on his life.
Additional reading:
Prohibit Attempts To Medically ‘Cure’ Or Change Sexual Orientation Of LGBTQIA+ People : Madras High Court Best of Chinki Minki ( Kashmiri Singers ) Latest Superhit Kashmiri songs “RAAZE PATHER " presented by Dilkash Folk Theatre Hatmulla
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After decades now, India is conducting a mass adult vaccination drive for the first time for COVID-19. The last such time was in the 1960s and 1970s during the Smallpox eradication programme. The government health authorities have to plan the COVID-19 vaccination drive while ensuring that the universal immunisation programme for children is not hampered.
To understand more about organising the COVID-19 vaccination drive, the Suno India team spoke to Dr Suresh Dalpath, who works at Haryana’s State Health Systems Resource Centre, a technical arm of the health department. He looks after public health planning, monitoring, and evaluation for all public health issues, including COVID-19
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On May 21, Goa’s district sessions judge, Kshama Joshi acquitted former editor-in-chief of Tehelka magazine, Tarun Tejal of charges of sexually harassing and raping his young colleague in 2013. The judgement said that the complainant did not demonstrate any kind of normative behavior of a victim of sexual assault. The judgement also looked at the victim’s phone messages and frowned upon what were seen as “flirtatious” with men.
This judgement has also come after years of fight for better rape laws, that respected the dignity of women. Suno India’s Menaka Rao, spoke to Usha Ramanathan, a human rights activist, and legal researcher to understand where this judgement stands in the history of rape jurisprudence. Ramanathan won the 2018 Human Rights Heroes Award by the digital rights organisation, Access Now for her work on highlighting the problems with India’s Aadhaar programme.
Show notes:
Acquitting Tejpal, court: Woman did not behave like sexual assault victim How Tarun Tejpal was given access to the victim’s personal WhatsApp messages to build his defence The NWMI Stands in Solidarity with the Survivor in Tarun Tejpal Case – NWM India Police in England and Wales dropping rape inquiries when victims refuse to hand in phones Power – An open letter to the Supreme Court changed the way many Indians thought about women’s Mahmood Farooqui vs State (Govt Of Nct Of Delhi) on 25 September, 2017 The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 Images (1920-1950) – Reasonable Man, Reasonable Woman and Reasonable Expectations Plea in Supreme Court to save academic freedom Riley v. California (06/25/2014)
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United Nations Population Foundation के द्वारा जमा किये गए आकंड़ों के अनुसार 2020 में 120 लाख महिलाओं को गर्भ निरोधक प्राप्त नहीं हुए हैं और उसके कारण 14 लाख अनियोजित गर्भ धारणाऐं देखी गई हैं। Linkedin द्वारा किये गई के Opportunity Index Survey अनुसार 89% महिलाओं को रोज़गार ढूढ़ने में कठिनाई हुई हैं।
इस एपिसोड में हमने महिलाओं की स्तिथि पर कोरोना महामारी के दुष्प्रभाव समझने के लिए हमने संघमित्रा सिंह से बात की। संघमित्रा जी एक स्वास्थ्य वैज्ञानिक हैं और पापुलेशन फाउंडेशन ऑफ़ इंडिया के लिए काम करती है।
इस एपिसोड में हम महिलों के आर्थिक, मानसिक और सामाजिक स्वास्थ्य पे भी चर्चा करेंगे।
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We have come a long way since the AIDS epidemic of the 80’s and 90’s. Some of the groups that the HIV intervention programs focused on are men having sex with men and transgender women. In fact, that is how the fight against Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises “unnatural sexual” relationships began as liberation is key to queer people’s health. Despite the advancements since, queer people are still bullied in schools and rejected by their families, resulting in them turning to high-risk activities for relief and escape. On the other hand, the intervention programs have not caught up with technological changes posed by dating apps.
We are embarking on an LGBTQ miniseries about all things queer in India today. For our first episode, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to policy researcher Avinaba, HIV activist Firoz Khan, and a young person living with HIV, Vishwas. Avinaba is a genderqueer person and a research fellow at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the co-founder of Pleqsus India foundation. Firoz Khan is a gay man who works with Alliance India on HIV outreach. Vishwas is an alias for a 22-year-old bisexual man who contracted HIV as a young teen. We spoke to them about the need for a more comprehensive HIV intervention plan.
Additional reading:
(UNAIDS) - India Sex, Drugs, And Illness: How Chemsex Is Harming India's Gay Men Safe custody? - Indiascope News - Issue Date: May 31, 1994 Less Than Gay Substance use and risk of HIV infection among Men who have... : Medicine Findings from the 2017 HIV estimation round & trend analysis of key indicators 2010-2017 Government apathy leaves India's AIDS programme in crisis Chemsex and the failure of new HIV prevention strategies in India
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The pandemic has left a large part of the Indian population jobless and struggling. A report published by Azim Premji University, Bangalore titled ‘State of Working India 2021’ revealed that about 100 million people lost jobs during the nationwide April-May 2020 lockdown. The report said that the job crisis has disproportionately affected women.
To know more about the report’s findings and to understand the complexities of unemployment created by the COVID-19 pandemic, Kunika Balhotra, Research and Communications Officer for Suno India spoke with one of the authors of this report, Amit Basole. Basole is an associate Professor of Economics at Azim Premji University, Bangalore. He is also the Director of Centre for Sustainable Employment and works on “jobless growth” in India.
In this episode, Professor Basole explains how joblessness adversely affected the hunger situation in the country, effectiveness of government support to counter it and suggests a possible way forward.
Show notes
State of Working India 2021 Report The Inequality Virus Report It is getting from bad to worse for women workers Hunger Watch Survey
Also listen The Inequality Virus: How The Indian Government Helped Widen Our Wealth Gap COVID19: Depressed incomes, increased hunger reveals Right to Food Campaign’s Hunger Watch Report
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जहाँ एक और कोरोना की दूसरी लहर में हमारे देश में मौत का कुल आकंड़ा 3.5 लाख से ऊपर पंहुचा दिया हे वही दूसरी और देश में कोरोना की रोकथाम के लिए चल रहे टिकाकरन अभियान को भी बहुत सारी मुश्किलों का सामना करना पड़ रहा हे। इन् मुश्किलों में एक प्रमुख टीकाकरन के इर्दगिर्द फैली गलतफमियों और लोगों के मन टिका लगवाने को लेके झिझक हे।
The Suno India Show के इस एपिसोड में आप जन स्वस्थ्य अभियान की संयोजिका सुलक्षणा नंदी और उनकी सहकर्मी दीपिका जोशी को डॉ टी सुंदररमन से कोरोना टिकाकरन से जुड़े कई मुद्दों जैसे की टिका क्यों लगवाना जरुरी हे, उसके प्रभाव और दुष्प्रभाव क्या हैं और टीकाकरन के इर्दगिर्द फैली गलत फमियों पर बात करते सुनेंगे।
डॉ टी सुंदररमन, जन स्वाथ्य अभियान के वैश्विक समन्वयक हैं । ये एपिसोड जन स्वाथ्य अभियान, All India People’s Science Network और भारत ज्ञान विज्ञानं समिट द्वारा आयोजित Facebook Live का एक भाग हे जिसे इस पॉडकास्ट एपिसोड के रूप में आप सुन रहे हैं |
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In the 2019 general election, when BJP had a surprise win in 18 out 42 seats in West Bengal, many of these were in areas dominated by Scheduled Castes and Tribes. So, for the 2021 state assembly elections, the ruling Trinamool Congress’s main challenge was reconnecting with Dalit and Adivasi voters. This has been possible because of figures like Manorajan Byapari, a Dalit refugee author who entered politics with this election and won. The TMC won a total of 213 seats out of 294, with the BJP winning in 75.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to the MLA whose life is stranger than fiction. Previously a cow-herder, chaiwallah, rickshaw-puller and cook who spent many nights starving on the streets, Byapari has managed to fight to the top. The award-winning author first learned to read and write during a stint in prison. Now as the Chair of the new Dalit Sahitya Academy and as an MLA, he says he will work for the people previously he could only write about.
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The Supreme Court this week said that “strong words” of disapproval against the government did not amount to sedition. The order was passed in a case against journalist Vinod Dua by a local BJP leader from Himachal Pradesh. The Supreme court has also decided to review the sedition law.
Earlier this year, Article 14 published the findings of its sedition database that tracked all sedition cases filed in the past 10 years. The database showed that nearly 11,000 people have been charged for sedition since 2010, from journalists to academics to authors to opposition politicians. Since the BJP came to power, the cases have increased by 28% each year. More than 400 people were charged with sedition for criticising politicians–most of them had criticised Narendra Modi and UP chief minister,Yogi Adityanath.
The author of the piece, independent journalist Kunal Purohit spoke to Lubhyathi Rangarajan, the head of the Article 14 Sedition Database. She is also an independent lawyer and researcher.
SHOW NOTES
Journalists entitled to protection against sedition, says Supreme Court Supreme Court to review validity of law on sedition | India News Our New Database Reveals Rise In Sedition Cases In The Modi Era
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This is the second episode in the two-part series on vaccine policy in the country.
What should a country, state or local government do in case only a limited quantity of vaccines are available? How can a government body ensure even the poorest people living in remote areas access the COVID-19 vaccines. Is the Indian government managing to reach out to everyone in the country eligible to be vaccinated?
Suno India’s Menaka Rao reached out to Sulakshana Nandi, joint convenor of the Jan Swasthya Abhiyaan who has been working organisations of poor, tribal people in Chhattisgarh for years now. She is also a health researcher and has studied inequities in healthcare. We also briefly featured prof R Ramakumar, a developmental economist from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, in Mumbai.
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There has been a severe shortage of vaccines all over the country since April. On April 19, the Central government announced a new “liberalised” vaccine policy which allowed everyone over the age of 18 to get a vaccine. As per the policy, however, state governments have to buy vaccines for its younger population between 18-44 years. The companies were allowed to fix the price for vaccines for both state governments and the private sector.
What is the consequence of this kind of policy? Suno India has published a two-part series on this crucial issue.
In the first episode, To understand more, Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to professor R Ramakumar. He is from the Centre for Study of Developing Economics in Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He has written extensively about the vaccine policy in several publications.
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There have been almost 12,000 cases of mucormycosis, commonly called ‘black fungus’, in India so far. Mucormycosis has a death rate of about 54% according to the The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Usually considered a rare disease, it is infecting those recovering from coronavirus at an unprecedented number, especially those who are diabetic. Gujarat and Maharashtra are the worst affected with almost 3,000 cases each of mucormycosis so far.
The Delhi High Court has ordered duty free import of mucormycosis medication Amphotericin B, while US-based Gilead Sciences is preparing to supply 1 million doses to India. But availability is not the only issue. The steep price of mucormycosis treatment is costing between five to fifteen lakhs per patient. Among the survivors of mucormycosis, some are losing their eyes due to the fungal infection.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Dr Akshay Nair, an oculoplastic surgeon in Mumbai. He has been treating several cases of mucormycosis in this pandemic. We explore causes, symptoms, preventive measures and treatment. So that if you encounter a mucormycosis infection, you’ll know exactly what to do.
Additional Reading:
Mucormycosis Statistics | Mucormycosis | Fungal Diseases National Diabetes and Diabetic Retinopathy Survey report 2015-2019
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Dr Smarajit Jana was an epidemiologist who curbed the spread of HIV through sex work at the height of the epidemic in the 90’s. He realised that combating HIV was not a question of information but of empowerment, and led a structural change fighting for sex workers’ rights. He helped the country’s administration understand the sex work community and flipped the HIV control programme’s disease-centric perspective to a rights based one.
Dr Jana passed away earlier this month on May 8 due to COVID-19. He was also a member of the National Task Force on COVID-19. On this episode of The Suno India Show, reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee explores Dr Jana’s legacy. She speaks to K Sujatha Rao, former Secretary of Health and Family Welfare, and Bharati Dey, head of sex workers’ collective Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee. We look back at how a public health worker began a fight for sex workers in Asia’s largest red light district, Sonagachi, that reverberated across the world.
The Sonagachi project: a sustainable community intervention program Dr. Smarajit Jana – The DMSS project with sex workers in Kolkata: challenges and achievements
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The daily death rate in India from coronavirus is still on a rise. Health workers on the front lines against this disease are disproportionately affected. In a report titled, ‘Occupational Hazards in Healthcare Settings, A Study of Invisibilised Frontline Workers in Bengaluru’, Dr Sylvia Karpagam writes that on one end of Indian healthcare system are highly paid male doctors mostly from dominant caste groups, while on the other end are exploited workers, mostly dalit, relegated to sanitation and waste disposal. Advocate Maitreyi Krishnan has also been investigating how workers at the lower rungs of the healthcare system are disproportionately affected by the pandemic. She represents All India Central Council of Trade Unions and examines labour law violations.
Advocate Maitreyi and Dr Sylvia take a broad view of frontline warriors engaged in health and sanitation work including crematorium workers, Asha workers, garbage collectors and cleaning staff within hospitals. In this episode, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to both of them about the experiences of these workers in this pandemic.
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Many semi skilled workers are taking up jobs with online companies such as Zomato, Ola, Uber among others. The gig economy has produced about 8 million jobs and is expected to triple to 24 million jobs in the next 3-4 years.
While the sector offers opportunities to informal sector workers to get relatively better paying jobs, with flexible work timings and locations. But the question remains if these working conditions are better suited for the workers in terms of having sustained income. The lack of health benefits, the unpredictable working conditions leave a lot to be desired in these jobs. To find out more about ‘gig’ work and the challenges it imposes on its workforce, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and Communication Officer reached out to Ambika Tandon.
Ambika is a Senior Policy Officer at the Center for Internet and Society. She works on the intersections between technology and gender. She spoke about how companies focus on increasing social security and health benefits for their gig employees.
Additional Reading:
Unlocking the Potential of the Gig Economy in India The Indian Federation of App-based Transport Workers: A case study Locking down the Impact of COVID-19 The Gig Economy and COVID-19: Fairwork Report on Platform Policies
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The daily death rate from coronavirus is reaching 4000, while daily cases are over 3 lakhs. The Indian Medical Association has written to the health ministry, criticising various aspects of how the pandemic is being handled, asking for it to, quote, “wake up from its slumber”. The IMA has noted over 900 deaths of doctors in India so far due to the pandemic.
Dr Navjot Singh Dahiya, the national Vice President of the IMA is one of the most vocal critics of the government’s handling of the pandemic. He has called prime minister Narendra Modi a superspreader due to his election rallies during March and April, and also for allowing the Kumbh Mela and other gatherings. He has also made a police complaint against spiritual leader Baba Ramdev for mocking health workers complaining of oxygen shortage and saying that our nostrils are oxygen cylinders.
On this episode, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Dr Navjot Singh Dahiya about his experiences on the ground as a doctor and as a representative of the Indian Medical Association. He laid out his frustrations with the health ministry which he claims suffers from a lack of scientific and professional approach to the pandemic.
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Many children have been left orphaned during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the recent few months, social media is filled with messages asking people to adopt such orphans.
This is clearly illegal, say our speakers for this episode. Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer spoke with Prabhat Kumar, head of Child Protection at Save the Children and Meera Marthi of Where are India’s children to understand the various processes involved in protecting a child at risk, including adoption. Lack of awareness and rampant misinformation around procedures involving legal adoption is putting many children at risk of trafficking and illegal adoptions.
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As daily covid cases rise over 4 lakhs, India is struggling to breathe. There is an increasing number of people dying across the country simply due to a lack of oxygen. The Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court lock horns to ensure oxygen supply to Delhi, while people in other states move to the courts as well.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, host Suryatapa Mukherjee explores how we got here and how we can solve this issue. Contributing Editor Menaka Rao speaks to SD Mishra, the Controller of Explosives at Nagpur headquarters. He says that India is producing enough oxygen for its needs but it is transportation that is the issue.
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“The second wave" mini – series के पहले भाग में सुनो इंडिया के सह संस्थापक तरुण निर्वाण ने डॉ वंदना प्रसाद से देश में कोरोना के बढ़ते मामलों और उनसे हमारे देश की स्वास्थ्य सेवाओं पर पड़ रहे असर के बारे में बात की थी।
इसके दूसरे भाग में हम उसी चर्चा को आगे बढ़ाते हुए डॉ वंदना से और कई महत्वपूर्ण पहलुओं जैसे की हमारे देश में चल रहे COVID -19 के टीकाकरण अभियान और इस महामारी का असर हमारी ग्रामीण क्षेत्रों की स्वास्थ्य सेवाओं पे कितना पड़ा हे, के बारे में जानने की कोशिश करेंगे।
इसी के साथ हम उनसे ये भी जानने की कोशिश करेंगे की ये एंटी वायरल ड्रग्स Remdesivir and Favipiravir के अलावा प्लासमा थेरेपी कोरोना के मरीज़ों के लिए कितनी कारगर हे।
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अप्रैल 2021 में जहा हमारे देश में कोरोना संक्रमण की सुनामी आयी हुई हे और कोरोना मामलों की संख्या प्रतिदिन ३ लाख को पार कर चुकी हे। जिसके चलते पुरे देश की स्वास्थ्य सेवायें चरमराती हुई प्रतीत हो रही हे। देश के हर बड़े शहर के अस्पतालों में बेड्स से लेके ऑक्सीजन और दवाईओं की भारी किल्लत हो रही हे और अस्पतलों को ऑक्सीजन की आपूर्ति के लिए उच्च न्यायालयों का दरवाज़ा खटखटाना पड़ रहा हे।
इन् मौजूदा हालातों को देखते हुए हम सब के मन में कई प्र्शन उठ रहे हैं जैसे की क्या आज़ादी के 70 साल के बाद भी हमारी सरकारें देश में बुनियादी सुविधयां जैसे की अस्पताल, उनमे बेड, ऑक्सीजन और बेसिक उपकरण भी मुहैया नहीं कर पायी? क्यों 130 करोड़ की जनसँख्या वाले इस देश में चिकित्सकों, नर्सों और अन्य चिकित्सकीय स्टाफ की कमी दिखाई दे रही हे?
इन्ही सब मुद्दों पे बात करने के लिए हम लाये हे The Suno India Show के तहत एक खास mini – series “The second wave"। इस mini – series के पहले एपिसोड में सुनो इंडिया के सह संस्थापक तरुण निर्वाण ने डॉ वंदना प्रसाद से इन् सभी मुद्दों पे चर्चा की हे।
डॉ वन्दना प्रसाद एक सामुदायिक बाल रोग विशेषज्ञ और सार्वजनिक स्वास्थ्य पेशेवर (पब्लिक हेल्थ एक्सपर्ट) हैं। वह जन स्वास्थ्य अभियान की संयुक्त संयोजिका और Right to Food Campaign की संचालन समिति की सदस्य हैं। उन्होंने भारत सरकार के राष्ट्रीय बाल अधिकार संरक्षण आयोग के सदस्य (बाल स्वास्थ्य) रूप में भी कार्य किया है।
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As the West Bengal elections come to a close, we look back at one of the most remarkable events in the past few months, the birth of the Indian Secular Front. Led by a Furfura Sharif cleric Abbas Siddiqui, it protests the lack of development of oppressed castes and tribes and minority religions in the state. It represents these varied backgrounds among its party leadership and the candidates fielded this election.
But is there a need for Muslim, Dalit, Adivasi unity in West Bengal? In this episode, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Abdul Matin, an Assistant Professor at the Department of International Relations and Political Science in Jadavpur University of Kolkata.
Matin explains how since Independence, West Bengal has increasingly moved away from a political discourse based on caste to one based on religion. He says this brand of “communal politics” benefits both the Trinamool and the BJP. West Bengal ministers holding important portfolios across Congress, Left Front and Trinamool rule have been exclusively upper caste despite upper castes making up only 13% of the population in the state.
We also discuss the prospects of the Indian Secular Front in this election before results are announced on May 2.
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In March 2020, the newspapers were full of stories on COVID-19 cases and the imposition of the world’s strictest lockdown. There were images and stories about migrant labourers walking home, getting stuck in quarantine facilities, among others.
But where did women and other marginalised genders stand in these stories?
In this episode, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer, Kunika Balhotra interviewed veteran journalist, Sameera Khan and scholar, Sweta Singh assistant professor at the University School of Mass Communication who decided to find out if women, and other marginalised genders were even featured in these stories.
Recently, they released a study titled, “Locating Gender Perspectives in COVID-19 Reportage in India: An Analysis of Print Media” conducted between March 2020 to September 2020. This research study has been produced by Population First, UNFPA and the Network of Women in Media India.
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Since the COVID-19 pandemic struck, most schools and colleges in the country switched to online education. Much has been said about the digital divide in the country where the privileged students are able to access education, while the poor students struggle.
In Melghat forest reserve in Maharashtra, most children have not attended a single online class for the past one year. This region is about 70 km away from Amravati city but is highly underdeveloped. Be it roads, or schools, or nutrition, Melghat is always in the news for the wrong reasons.
Reporter Prashant Rathore spoke to the youth and children from Melghat who had dreams of studying further, but felt stymied because of the pandemic.
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Despite a very steep second wave in the country, in West Bengal it is politics as usual. The election lasted nearly a month, with political parties including Bharatiya Janata Party, Trinamool Congress and Community Party (Marxist) having election rallies. This, despite, many warnings by public health experts.
India is breaking records of COVID-19 positive cases across the world. Daily cases in the country have hit a new high of over three lakhs. In West Bengal too, one in every three people in West Bengal is testing positive. For the past few days, there have been calls on social media pleading for beds in Kolkata. The election climate though seems apathetic to the pandemic.
To get an expert perspective regarding the increasing number of COVID cases, strategies like Lockdown and the decision to curb these cases by Center and state, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Dr Soumyadeep Bhaumik.
Dr Bhaumik is an international public health specialist working on policy impact at The George Institute for Global Health. He is also an Associate Editor for Evidence Synthesis at BMJ Global Health.
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The Union budget 2021 claimed a 137 percent increase in health and well being. However, the Union health budget still remains at about 0.34% of GDP – a slight increase from 0.31% last year’s budget estimate.
The biggest scheme introduced in the past few years is the Ayushman Bharat scheme. In February 2020, the Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman slashed the budget from Rs 6,400 crore to Rs 3,314 crore for the Ayushman Bharat Scheme. Also known as Pradhan Mantri Jan Aarogya Yojana (PMJAY), this scheme was rolled out to cover a population of about 50 crores. However, this scheme though has been underutilised and has not made health more accessible to people.
With the unprecedented COVID-19 situation globally, India is also struggling with health care workers like doctors, nurses and other staff. And, it’s important to understand the economic approach to handling the inequalities in the healthcare sector in the country.
To know more about the role of health economics in the country and health budgeting, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and communications Officer spoke to Dipa Sinha.
Dipa is an Assistant Professor of Economics at the School of Liberal Studies, Ambedkar University, Delhi (AUD). Before joining AUD, she worked with the Office of Commissioners to the Supreme Court, Centre for Equity Studies and Public Health Research Network, and is actively involved with the Right to Food Campaign.
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Both the TMC and the BJP have been courting Matuas for their vote. So, we travelled to Thakurnagar, the mecca of Matuas in West Bengal, to find out what they want this election season. People on the ground praise the Trinamool’s social schemes but are hurt by the party’s corruption charges. BJP on the other hand is promising citizenship which is a prime concern for this refugee population.
Matua is a religious movement of the Namasudras, a scheduled caste. It was started by Namasudra leader Hari Chand Thakur to foster equality. When India was partitioned, the areas of Bengal with Scheduled Caste strongholds became part of Pakistan, now Bangladesh. Following religious persecution, many have been fleeing to India over the years. So, most people from scheduled castes in West Bengal belong to refugee families.
Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to BJP candidate Subrata Thakur and TMC leader Mamata Bala Thakur, both from the Thakur family. She also spoke to local Namashudra women about their hopes in this election.
Also, listen to The importance of CAA to Dalits in West Bengal
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The second wave of COVID-19 pandemic has become a steep wall. India is adding more than 2 lakhs cases every day. It has affected cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Raipur very badly. State ministers have been appealing for steady oxygen supply in the state government.
In this episode Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Giridhara Babu, the professor and head of Life Course Epidemiology at the Indian Institute of Public Health, which is a constituent of the Public Health Foundation of India. He has been in an advisory capacity with both Karnataka state government and Bengaluru civic body.
Dr Babu said that the quantum of people who need care in the second wave has increased. He spoke about how the states need to focus on augmenting oxygen supply and hire a steady number of healthcare professionals who can help tide the current crisis.
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You might have heard about Matuas and Namasudras on the news, as a key vote bank in the West Bengal elections. But who are they? Namasudras are a Scheduled Caste of West Bengal and Bangladesh. Matua is a religious movement started by Namasudra leader Hari Chand Thakur to foster equality among castes and genders.
Namasudras have consistently influenced Indian history and politics. However, their achievements are not really a part of history lessons in schools, and not broadcast on the news either. Namasudras led the first general strike in India on record in 1872. They lobbied to institute reservation for Scheduled Castes in Bengal in 1906. They are also responsible for electing BR Ambedkar to the Constituent Assembly that drafted the Indian Constitution in 1946.
When India was partitioned, the areas of Bengal with Scheduled Caste strongholds became part of Pakistan, and later Bangladesh. These Dalits were religiously persecuted there following Partition and the Bangladesh Liberation War, and have been fleeing to India. So a significant proportion of Dalits in West Bengal are from refugee families. In fact, BJP won many SC seats in 2019 in West Bengal due to their campaign promising citizenship to these refugees with CAA.
Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Mamata Bala Thakur, a former member of Lok Sabha and a Trinamool leader, about her family’s political history. She is Namasudra, and a Matua Ma, as in, a religious elder of the Matua community. The history of the Namasudra Thakur family is closely tied to the political history of Scheduled Castes in Bengal.
Additional Reading:
How the Bengali chotalok shaped India’s destiny Celebrating Dalit History : The 1873 Namashudra Strike Problem of Caste and Identity: The Namasudras of Colonial India
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On March 16, the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha. The Bill increased the gestation period of pregnancy during which women can seek abortion from 20 weeks to 24 weeks of pregnancy. The Bill — which is now a law– has instituted medical boards to decide on abortion in case of foetal anomalies after 24 weeks of pregnancy.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dipika Jain, Director, Centre for Justice, Law and Society at Jindal Global Law School in Sonepat, near Delhi to get a broader understanding of both the law and its critique. We also looked at the Parliamentary debate on this issue, particularly those made by Amee Yagnik, a Congress MP from Gujarat and Binoy Vishram from the Communist Party of India in Kerala.
Show notes
The 2016 Lancet study on abortion in 6 states of the country 2019 BMJ study on unsafe abortions Pratigya Campaign’s study analysing judicial orders on abortion Centre for Justice, Law and Society at Jindal Global Law School study on medical boards Parliamentary debates on MTP Bill on March 16, 2021
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India is experiencing the second wave of COVID-19 cases since the first week of February. India is recording about a lakh cases on an average daily. The wave started from Maharashtra and Punjab, and has now extended to Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu among others. Maharashtra still accounts for half the cases in the country on a daily basis.
Suno India’s Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Subhash Salunke, the technical advisor to the Maharashtra Government on Covid-19. He is a public health official and has worked as the director of Health Services in the state before he retired. He spoke about the challenges for the state government in the second wave. He also explained why the state is suffering a huge number of cases both in the first wave and the second wave.
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हम में से कई लोगों ने सुना होगा कि यौन उत्पीड़न और महिलाओं के साथ छेड़छाड़ के मामले में, हम हमेशा पुलिस में शिकायत दर्ज कर सकते हैं। हमने यह भी सुना है कि इनमें से कई शिकायतें आसानी से हल नहीं होती हैं और शिकायतकर्ता को बहुत साड़ी मश्कत करनी पड़ती हे। यौन उत्पीड़न की लिए जो कानून और दिशानिर्देश बने हुए हैं वो शिकायत करने वाली महिलाओं के बिना किसी अड़चन के शिकायत दर्ज़ करवाने के लिए बने हैं, पर हकीकत में ऐसा होता नहीं हे। लेकिन अगर हमे अपने अधिकारों के बारे में ज्ञान होगा तो ये निश्चित ही हमें अपने अधिकारों की मांग करने में मदद करेगा।
द सनो इंडिया शो की इस कड़ी में, काम्या पांडेय ने दिल्ली के वकील अभिमन्यु तिवारी से बात की, और उनसे यौन अपराध के एक मामले में सभी कानूनी प्रक्रियां जैसे कि कैसे एफआईआर दर्ज होती हे, जांच के दौरान क्या होता है, पे चर्चा की |
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Kerala is a state with a majority of its workforce find an earning outside the state, and a major share are located at the Gulf countries due to many socio-economic and historical reasons. The Covid 19 pandemic affected the livelihood of these non-resident Indians or NRI workforce drastically. A major chunk of these NRI Keralites were forced to return to their native places during the Covid induced lock-down.
A recent study by the Trivandrum based Centre for Development Studies (CDS) says that more than 8 lakhs from the Arabian countries returned due to the Covid pandemic. Among the 8 lakh gulf returnees, more than 6 lakh people returned jobless. This poses a major threat to the socio-economic fabric of the small state. Not only the problems they face in their personal and livelihood matters, but a sudden appearance of a huge number of voters, who were on the voters list but was not able to cast their votes, will have an impact on the assembly election to be held in Kerala on April 6.
In this episode, independent reporter Jaison G tries to understand the impact the international migrant labour community in Kerala will have on the upcoming Kerala assembly elections.
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West Bengal’s unemployment rate was 17.4% in 2020, less than the national 23.5%. However, for many in Nandigram, employment is a distant dream. To outsiders, it may seem like this is their own doing for protesting so vehemently against industrialisation in 2007. It was their movement against the setting up of a SEZ across 10,000 acres by Indonesia-based Salim group, that changed the political history of West Bengal. It ended 34 years of Left Front rule and led to the victory of Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress.
But for people who have raised and slayed governments, they struggle to make ends meet even after all these years. They say they want industrialisation that will provide them jobs, not upend their lives. In fact, there are acres of government land lying empty—reminders of unfulfilled promises of factories by successive governments.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee brings you a ground report from the most hotly contested seat in the West Bengal elections. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is contesting against her former right hand man in the region, Suvendu Adhikari, who has now joined BJP. But who is to blame for the job crisis in the region? Listen in.
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In this episode, we speak with senior reporters, Prachi Pinglay and Kunal Shankar who produced a podcast on the impact of fake news in India for On Spec, an independent podcast from Istanbul, Turkey. The episode– Love in the Times of Hate- will be published on April 3.
Shownotes: http://onspecpodcast.com/
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In October 2020, the lights went out in parts of Maharashtra, including Mumbai, the commercial capital of India. Cyber security group Recorded Future alleged that Chinese actors were responsible for the attack. Then around February 2021, Chinese interference was found in the IT systems of Bharat Biotech and Serum Institute, the manufacturers of Covaxin and Covishield, a cyber intelligence firm Cyfirma said.
Cyber activity with Chinese links is especially worrying given the ongoing border tensions. However, China is not alone in snooping around our cyberspace. Elements from Russia, North Korea, Iran and even the USA have been detected.
In this episode, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee spoke to Raman Jit Singh Chima, the Asia Policy Director and Senior International Counsel at Access Now, which is an international digital rights organisation. He discussed the various breaches in our cybersecurity and how India needs to get a handle on this problem as soon as possible.
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On March 15 and 16th of 2021, the United Forum of Bank Unions called for a two day strike in order to oppose the proposed privatization of Public Sector Banks by the Centre.
The Finance Minister, Nirmala Sitharaman in her Union Budget Speech 2021-22 stated that the Centre wanted to privatise IDBI and two other banks. More than 10 lakh banking employees have gone on strike in March 2021 against privatisation.
Let's go down to the basics of banking- What is the function of banks, and how did they evolve. To get the answers to these fundamental questions on banking, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer reached out to Amol Agrawal.
Amol is a faculty in the Economics Area at Amrut Mody School of Management at Ahmedabad University. He has about 10 years of Work Experience mainly as an economist in financial markets in Mumbai. He is an avid blogger and his blog is consistently ranked amidst top 100 economics blogs in the world. Check out his blogs, “Mostly Economics” here.
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The whole nation appears to be watching the west Bengal state assembly election. The election will be conducted in 8 phases for 294 seats, from 27th march to 29th April. In the general election of 2019, the Bharatiya Janata Party won 18 seats, only 4 less than Trinamool’s 22 seats. The Rashtriya Janata Dal of Bihar and Samajwadi Party of Uttar Pradesh have extended their support to Banerjee, signalling the unity of regional parties against the national dominance of BJP.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Sambit Pal, the author of Bengal Conundrum: Rise of the BJP and Future of the TMC. It examines how a traditionally leftist state is swinging right within just a few years. He is a senior journalist from West Bengal and an Assistant Professor at Indian Institute of Mass Communication, Dhenkanal.
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In 2019, an estimated 26 lakh people fall sick with TB in India. Of these about 1.24 lakh have drug resistant tuberculosis.
On March 24, which is World TB Day, Suno India’s Menaka Rao speaks with Meera Yadav, a TB survivor and activist. She got TB in 2013, a few months after she delivered a child. She then suffered 8 years taking treatment for TB during which her lung was removed via surgery. She now works with a nonprofit with one of the government projects helping TB patients who seek treatment in the private sector. She recently moved the Bombay High Court along with health rights activist Brineille D’Souza with the plea that two drugs– Bedaquiline and Delamanid –which used to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis should be produced in India so that more patients can access it.
Additional reading: WHO Operational Handbook on Tuberculosis, 2020 Treating TB is hard, it is worse if you are a woman Why TB patients aren’t getting the drugs they need
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According to the latest data released by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, the unemployment rate in the country has increased to 6.9%. In this scenario, most people fall back on the government to provide them with work.
Right to work is a directive principle in the Indian Constitution. The government has existing legislation guaranteeing right to work- the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act or NREGA – which mandates 100 days of work in a year for the poor in the rural areas. Several schemes were also announced by state governments to ensure work in urban areas too.
To understand more about the government employment schemes in the country, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer, Kunika Balhotra reached out to Rakshita Swamy, who leads the Social Accountability Forum for Action and Research.
She works towards advocating and institutionalising transparency, accountability, and citizen participation in governance, through her collaboration with central and state governments, and civil society organisations. She is associated with the Right to information and Right to Work campaigns.
Additional Reading
The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 International Labour Organization – Global Wage Report 2020-21: Wages and minimum wages in the time of COVID-19
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The Covid-19 pandemic has shown us the need for good clinical trials in India – they help us figure out treatments that work and ones that don’t. But some of these studies have been marred by reports of ethical violations, creating hesitancy among the general public.
There are checks and balances in the Indian clinical trial rules and other guidelines that are meant to prevent these violations. One of these checks is in the form of a body called the Ethics Committee. In this episode, we demystify this ethics committee. What is their role? Why do ethical irregularities keep cropping up? And what can ethics committees do to prevent them?
For this episode, Shreya Dasgupta spoke to Dr. Urmila Thatte, a clinical pharmacologist, bioethicist and Emeritus professor at the Seth GS Medical College and KEM Hospital in Mumbai; Dr. Anant Bhan, a bioethics and global public health researcher at Yenepoya University in Mangalore; and Dr. Subhrojyoti Bhowmick, the clinical director for clinical research, academics and patient safety, at Peerless hospital at Kolkata.
This episode was supported by a grant from the Thakur Family Foundation, which has not exercised any editorial control over the contents of the podcast.
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After recent tweets from Rihanna and Greta Thunberg raising concerns with Internet Shutdowns and Farm Protests in India, the Indian Government was unable to force Twitter to take down accounts of people supporting these protests, including accounts of media organizations like the caravan. The Government of India has now amended Intermediary Rules of 2011 and brought in new rules called Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 granting more powers to the government. These rules try to regulate social media platforms, digital publication platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime but also have included digital press publications under the Information Technology Act.
With these new rules, some publishers have approached the Delhi High Court challenging the limited portion of the regulating news media under these rules. The new intermediary rules try to regulate any organization with digital presence, but the way the Government wants to regulate them can harm the idea of open internet according to a statement from Mozilla Foundation.
In this episode guest host, Srinivas Kodali spoke to Prashanth Sugathan, a lawyer with the Software Freedom Law Centre to explain to us what these new rules are and why the digital media publishers have approached the court.
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On 3rd February, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology submitted its report on the DNA Technology Regulation Bill in the Rajya Sabha. If passed, the bill will set up a national DNA database in the country for the first time. The Bill aims to identify and store the DNA of offenders, suspects, undertrials, missing persons and unknown deceased persons.
Public relations agency Ogilvy India and government affairs consultancy firm Gordon Thomson Honeywell have been supporting the Bill with their campaign #DNAfightsRape. Although the Bill goes much beyond sexual assaulters alone, the #DNAfightsRape campaign focuses on how it could benefit sexual assault victims in particular.
In this episode, we explore how DNA is used in criminal investigations and how the science of DNA is addressed by the Bill. Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Shreya Rastogi, founder of Project 39A at National Law University, and Rohin Garg, Associate Policy Counsel at Internet Freedom Foundation. You will also hear speakers from Ogilvy’s webinar, Dr GK Goswami, the Inspector General of Police in Uttar Pradesh, and Vanessa Lynch, a senior government affairs consultant at Gordon Thomas Honeywell and the founder of The DNA Project and The DNA Project Africa.
Standing Committee Report on DNA Bill
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On 3rd February, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology submitted its report on the DNA Technology Regulation Bill in the Rajya Sabha. If passed, the Bill will set up a national DNA database in the country for the first time. It would indefinitely store the DNA of offenders, suspects, undertrials, missing persons and unknown deceased persons.
Two members of the Standing Committee filed dissent notes. AIMIM president Asaddudin Owaisi and CPI leader Binoy Viswam said that the report does not address privacy concerns and possible targeting of vulnerable communities. Both advised compliance with the Supreme Court’s Puttaswamy judgment on privacy rights.
In this episode, we examine these arguments. Our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Rohin Garg, Associate Policy Counsel at Internet Freedom Foundation. He was one of the experts consulted by the Standing Committee for its report.
Puttaswamy v. India Standing Committee Report on DNA Bill
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Independent journalist Srishti Jaswal was trolled online for a comment on a movie last year. Jaswal and her colleague, Shreegireesh Jalihal then investigated the group – Hindu IT cell- that organised the online trolling and the legal action against her and many other people who they felt insulted Hindu gods and goddesses. A story about this investigation has been published on the news website, Newslaundry. Menaka Rao from Suno India Show interviewed these two journalists and found out how they conducted this investigation. We also have published the interviews with the members of the IT cell in this show.
Also read:
Newslaundry story on Hindu IT cell Srishti’s story Twitter handle of Hindu IT cell Sushmita Sinha’s Instagram story on Teej Hindu IT cell’s Twitter handle response to mobbing outside Advocate Deepika Rajawat’s house
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There are more than 8,000 documented rare diseases in the world. An estimated 70-90 million Indians are said to be rare individuals. Most rare diseases are incurable, and where there are cures, the costs are prohibitive for patients and families. Rare diseases can also lead to disabilities. Yet why is that there is little public awareness of rare diseases?
This #RareDiseaseDay2021, hear the stories of people who have been part of the 1 in 20,000 podcast series. Launched in 2019, the series offers a window into the lives of rare individuals, their search for proper medical diagnosis, treatment, and well-being. Rare Lives is the second season of the 1 in 20,000 podcast series.
This series has sought to go beyond the stereotypes associated with rare individuals, who often end up being statistics in public conversation. For instance, it is said that the prevalence of a rare illness – FSHD – is 1 in 20,000 children. The series, however, dives into the perspectives, joys, challenges and motivations of rare individuals and their support systems. The upcoming session is a rare chance to see the human face behind the podcast episodes. They represent countless patients, families, caregivers, doctors, activists, and geneticists working to improve the life of every person who is living with a rare disease in India.
For this episode of The Suno India show, Avantika Shrivastava spoke with Vipul Goyal, Shambhavi Ravishankar, Iftikhar Zia and Dr. Priyanshu Mathur.
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On 12th January, the Haryana police arrested Nodeep Kaur, a Dalit labour activist while she was protesting against the non-payment of wages at Kundali industrial area (KIA) at Sonipat, Haryana. Kaur is from Punjab and the leader of Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, who is supporting ongoing farmer’s protests at the Haryana and UP border. US Vice President's niece Meena Harris tweeted her picture asking her to release brought her to notice. Farmer’s uprising circling National Capital got momentum and support across the globe, which asked the Central government to repeal three farms laws, which was passed through ordinance last year. United farmers organizations had 11 rounds of talks with the government and submitted 8 point charter. That demand includes the law on Minimum Support Price or MSP and repeals those three laws, which are related to open market trading, contractual farming, and excluding many products from the essential commodity list. The one issue, which is still missing from the farmer’s protest and on their agenda is Landless farmers or farm laborers issues. The 2011 census data shows that 71% of Dalits are landless laborers. In rural areas, 58.4% of Dalit households do not own land at all. Landless farmers belong to Dalit and Backward community with depressed wages and vulnerable to caste atrocity on daily basis.
The host of this episode of The Suno India Show, Prashant Kanojia spoke to Nodeep Kaur’s sister, Rajvir Kaur and her mother, Swarnjit Kaur. We also spoke to farmer leaders and protestors from the protest site and a journalist from Bihar. While explaining how the farm laws would affect landless farmers, they also highlighted the issues related to landless farmers and labourers, which has been undermined and is not on the agenda of the ongoing protest. They explain how these farmers are not recognized as farmers and how they could widen the protest across India.
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On February 5, Jammu & Kashmir government spokesperson Rohit Kansal tweeted that 4G mobile internet services have been restored in the entire Jammu and Kashmir area. The high-speed internet service was snapped by the government in August 2019 after the BJP led central government revoked Article 370 & downgraded the erstwhile state into two union territories. The low-speed or 2G Internet service on mobile phones was restored on January 25th, 2020.
The host of this episode of The Suno India Show, Irfan Amin Malik spoke to YouTubers, employees, students, journalists and others from different areas of Kashmir valley, who said that the high-speed internet that they recall has not been restored yet. The people also recalled how their daily life was hit back during the world’s longest internet shutdowns.
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The arrest of 22-year-old climate activist Disha Ravi has raised a number of questions. She has been charged with conspiracy and sedition for editing a google document, a toolkit supporting the farmers’ protests. The Delhi Police arrested Ravi from Bengaluru without a transit remand order. The police did not inform her chosen lawyers of her remand hearing and provided her with a legal aid lawyer instead. Then the magistrate ordered five days of police custody.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Colin Gonsalves, a Senior Advocate of the Supreme Court and the founder of Human Rights Law Network. Gonsalves says that even people protesting peacefully and legally can be arrested by the police illegally. However, he gives legal advice on how those arrested can speak up for their rights before the police and the court. Legal precedents and guidelines cited by him are linked below.
DK Basu guidelines Arnesh Kumar vs State Of Bihar MHA advisory on arresting an accused outside State/UT jurisdiction
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Recently several states including Uttar Pradesh introduced anti-conversion laws making religious conversion for the sake of marriage illegal. These laws were based on the conspiracy theory of ‘love jihad’ which posits that Muslim men marry Hindu women only to convert them to Islam. We bring a three-part series on how these laws have affected the lives of young people.
The narrative of ‘love jihad’ that emerges from the Hindutva ideology imagines a woman to be innocent, ignorant people who cannot take their own decisions. In this formulation, the ideal woman is the one who follows the social norms and listens to her family.
In this episode, we speak to three women who choose their own partners and tell us why they refused to obey social norms. Their choice is not just related to love, but also to their identity as independent women.
Also listen How ‘love jihad’ laws clash with The Special Marriage Act
Important links
“Articulating Hindu Masculinity and Femininity-Shuddhi and Sangathan Movements in United Provinces in the 1920s” by historian Charu Gupta in the Economic and Political Weekly. The Special Marriage Act, 1954 UP Unlawful Religious Conversion Prohibition Ordinance, 2020
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Recently several states including Uttar Pradesh introduced anti-conversion laws making religious conversion for the sake of marriage illegal. These laws were based on the conspiracy theory of ‘love jihad’ which posits that Muslim men marry Hindu women only to convert them to Islam. We bring a three-part series on how these laws have affected the lives of young people.
In this episode, Menaka Rao spoke to a couple who had to run away from Uttar Pradesh after the introduction of its so-called ‘love jihad’ law- UP Unlawful Religious Conversion Prohibition Ordinance, 2020. The two wanted to marry under the Special Marriage Act, 1954 which allows for a civil marriage without conversion. But the two were still scared for their lives in Uttar Pradesh. They sought the help of Dhanak, an organisation that helps such interfaith couples.
We spoke to Asif Iqbal from Dhanak to understand how these new laws affect interfaith couples who want to marry against the wishes of their parents. We also spoke to one couple from Rajasthan and another married couple from Uttar Pradesh.
Important links
The Special Marriage Act, 1954 UP Unlawful Religious Conversion Prohibition Ordinance, 2020 Shakti Vahini vs Union of India which ordered every district in the country to have a safe house for run-away couples, among other safeguards Allahabad high court judgement that read down the Special Marriage Act, 1954
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Recently several states including Uttar Pradesh introduced anti-conversion laws making religious conversion for the sake of marriage illegal. These laws were based on the conspiracy theory of ‘love jihad’ which posits that Muslim men marry Hindu women only to convert them to Islam. We bring a three-part series on how these laws have affected the lives of young people.
With a growing narrative of ‘Love Jihad’ across India, we look at this phenomenon in West Bengal and its ties to Hindutva politics. Devdutta Maji is the founder of Singha Bahini, a Hindutva outfit that claims to ‘rescue’ Hindu women trapped by Muslim men across the state. He has also joined BJP and hopes to help the party win in the upcoming state polls.
TMC MLA Rukbanur Rahman has personally experienced the opposition to interfaith marriages in the state. His brother Rizwanur Rahman had wed Priyanka Todi, the daughter of industrialist Ashok Todi, and died a month later. He says that not only is ‘Love Jihad’ a misnomer, the idea will not be accepted by the people of Bengal.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to Rahman, Majhi and a minor girl who Majhi says he rescued.
Also listen: How ‘love jihad’ laws clash with The Special Marriage Act How ‘love jihad’ affects women’s choice
Important links: Living Reality of Muslims in West Bengal – Appeasement or Exclusion? The Special Marriage Act, 1954
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On 1st February 2021, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented the first ever paper-less and digital Union Budget for the fiscal year 2021-22. This is the first time the budget documents were paperless since Independence. All members of Parliament received soft copies of the Union Budget.
We wanted to find out how Union Budgets have been presented so far. What were the financial priorities changed over the past 73 years? Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer, Kunika Balhotra spoke to Avani Kapur, a Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR). She is also the Director of the Accountability Initiative (AI). The focus of her work has been in building evidence for policy advocacy to strengthen transparency and accountability in public financial management for service delivery.
Additional Reading Budget Document 2021 Accountability Initiative Budget Briefs
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The Union Budget 2021-2022 presented by the Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on 1st February 2021 proposed an outlay of Rs 2.23 lakh crore towards health and well-being. The Finance Minister claimed a 137 per cent increase over from last year.
However, the Right to Food Campaign activists who work with the poor who depend on these nutrition programmes and public health systems said that there have been cuts in the health and nutrition programmes this year despite the growing hunger situation in the country.
To understand more about the budgetary allocations, Kunika Balhotra, Research and Communications for Suno India spoke with Jean Dreze and Dr Vandana Prasad.
Dreze is a developmental economist and a visiting professor of Economics at Ranchi University. Dr Prasad is a community pediatrician and public health professional. She is the Joint Convenor of Jan Swasthya Abhiyan and a member of the Steering Committee of the Right to Food Campaign.
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It has been a year since the pandemic began. Sex workers across India are scrambling to get back on their feet. They are slowly resuming work with various safety measures, although income is nowhere near the same.
On this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks to sex workers across the Indian states of West Bengal, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. They all echo the same statement: Sex work is work, and the state should protect all its workers equally.
They recall the months of unexpected lockdown that gutted their savings and even drove some to suicide. Few government policies were announced and those too required documents that sex workers do not have. Even after a Supreme Court verdict, implementation on the ground has been “too little too late”. They say they have always been persecuted, with red light areas shutting down across the country, pushing them into unsafe work environments. What is striking, however, is how communities of sex workers have supported each other. They found ways to help each other with basic necessities like food and medicines where state machineries failed.
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International charitable organisation Oxfam’s report ‘The Inequality Virus’ explores how inequality proved to be a bigger problem in this pandemic than the virus. Existing divisions in society were further widened with help from governments across the world, as the rich got richer and the poor poorer. Anjela Taneja, one of the lead authors of the report, understands that it’s a once-in-a-century crisis. She said that that the capacity of the state to deliver at this time is determined on whether it works in the interests of the vulnerable majority
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks with Anjela Taneja about the ways in which the government failed, and all the ways in which it can succeed moving forward. The pandemic earnings of India’s billionaires alone prove that the country has enough resources to take care of its needy.
THE INEQUALITY VIRUS Davos India Supplement, 2021
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Exactly a year ago, on January 30, 2020 the World Health Organisation declared that the Covid-19 outbreak is a public health emergency of international concern. We have all suffered a year of the pandemic now and it's time to look back and see what we have learned in hindsight.
For this episode, Host Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Chandrakant Lahariya, a public health policy expert. He has co-authored the book Till We Win: India's Fight Against The COVID-19 pandemic, with Dr Randeep Guleria, the director of AIIMS, New Delhi and Dr Gagandeep Kang, professor of Microbiology at the Christian Medical College, Vellore which was released recently.
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In November last year, India’s female labour force participation rate fell to its lowest points at 6.9%. While 67% of all men of working age are employed, only 9% of all women of working age are employed in the country. The longer term trends suggest that female labour force participation rates in India have been puzzling.
Women’s participation in the labor force is influenced and affected by many socio-economic factors such as how far they study, their age of marriage, urbanisation and others.
To understand more about the falling labour force participation of women in India, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research & Communication Officer reached out to Sona Mitra, Principal Economist at Initiative for What Works to Advance Women and Girls in the Economy, an initiative of LEAD at Krea University.
Additional Reading:
Women’s Voices: Employment and Entrepreneurship In India Women’s labour force participation in India: Why is it so low? Why is female labour force participation declining so sharply in India?
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The farmers’ protest against the three new farm laws is not the first where protesters have refused to engage with what they consider pro-government media. Slogans like ‘Godi Media Go Back’ were also seen during the anti CAA protests last year. However, this is the first time that protesters have taken the matter into their own hands, printing their own news. Trolley Times is a bi-weekly newsletter for the protesters, by the protesters.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee speaks with activist duo Navkiran Natt and Ajay Pal Natt. These siblings are part of the team behind Trolley Times. They discuss how and why they took up the pen and gave a voice to the farmers’ protests. Printed in Hindi and Gurmukhi and distributed by hand, the newsletter is also translated into English for a global audience online.
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Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin is one of the two Indian vaccines being administered to healthcare workers as India embarks on the world’s largest inoculation drive. Health experts have expressed concerns as hundreds of Bhopal Gas Tragedy survivors say they had been enrolled in the clinical trial for Covaxin without their informed consent. One of the trial participants, Deepak Marabi, passed away on December 21, 2020.
Join us on this episode of The Suno India Show, as our reporter Suryatapa Mukherjee explores the alleged violation of the rights of this vulnerable group as well as the alleged misconduct of the clinical trial. These participants say they weren’t adequately monitored and their adverse reactions to the vaccine weren’t properly recorded.
She speaks to Rachna Dhingra, the activist with Bhopal Group of Information and Action who first tweeted about these ethical and legal violations. You will also hear from some of the trial participants, and Anant Bhan, who works in the field of bioethics and global health.
Vice Chancellor Dr Rajesh Kapur’s statement Bharat Biotech’s statement National Ethical Guidelines National Guidelines for Covid-19 Pandemic
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The Code on Wages, 2019 is likely to come into effect before April this year. The Code on Wages Act, 2019 aims to amend and consolidate laws relating to wages and bonus. It also aims to simplify and rationalise the subsumed four legislations; the Payment of Wages Act, 1936; the Minimum Wages Act, 1948; the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.
The government has promised minimum wages for all workers in the country with the new Code. The Code will also change the salary structures of those working in the formal sector. To understand the nuances of the new law, Kunika Balhotra, Research and Communications Officer for Suno India spoke with Rituparna Chakraborty, Co-Founder & Executive Vice President of TeamLease.
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With discussions around agitations related to the recent Farm laws, what is missing is context. Reforms in agriculture have a history since India’s independence starting with the Green revolution. This history is important to understand the present.
In this episode, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer, spoke to Professor C.S.C. Sekhar to know more about the role of the agricultural sector in the Indian economy and the reforms that have transformed this sector since independence.
Our guest, C.S.C Sekhar is currently a Professor at the Institute of Economic Growth (IEG) and Honorary Director (former), Agricultural Economics Research Centre, University of Delhi, India.
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This is the second episode in the two-part series on developing COVID-19 vaccines for the Suno India show. In the first episode of the series, we discussed the different stages of clinical trials and how the vaccines were developed so fast.
In the second part, we are addressing key concerns about the cynicism around vaccine development. What are the legal processes involved in clearing the vaccines for mass vaccination in India? Were the vaccine trials fair and ethical? Is all the relevant information related to the vaccine development shared with the public?
For this episode, Menaka Rao spoke to Dr Amar Jesani, an expert bioethicist and teacher who has founded the prestigious journal, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics and advocate Murali Neelakantan, an expert in healthcare laws and drug development in India.
Also listen “Vaccinating against COVID-19: How did we get so many vaccines so fast?"
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The Indian government is gearing up for mass COVID-19 vaccinations. The question foremost on everyone’s minds are how were they developed so fast. The first episode of this two-part series for the Suno India Show gives a step-by-step explanation of vaccine development and what is different this time around.
For this episode, we feature the expert voices of Dr Shaheed Jameel, currently the director of the Trivedi School of Biosciences at Ashoka University, and Dr Amar Jesani, an expert bioethicist and teacher who has founded the prestigious journal, Indian Journal of Medical Ethics.
Also Listen “Vaccinating against COVID-19: Has the vaccine development been a fair and transparent process?“
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Police in Hyderabad are cracking down on predatory practices of micro-lending applications, which are driving people to suicides and bankruptcy. These micro-lending apps push online advertisements offering to give loans to people in need of cash and then overcharge them with excess interest rates. In case of delays in loan repayments, the app companies have resorted to public shaming of loan applicants by sending messages to all of their contacts and calling them frauds. People who are unable to cope with this social pressure and shaming are resorting to extreme measures. In this episode Digital Rights Activist, Srinivas Kodali speaks to Srikanth Lakshmanan of Cashless Consumer to explain to us how this entire industry works and to discuss consumer protections.
Additional Reading: Beware of illegal digital lending apps: RBI
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In this episode, Kashmiri independent journalist Irfan Amin Malik speaks to students in Kashmir about the problems they face due to 16 months long lockdown which started in August 2019 after BJP led central government revoked Article 370 & bifurcated the erstwhile state into two union territories.
The host spoke to students from different schools who narrated how education was the worst-hit sector in Kashmir during 16 months lockdown, and why online education also proved a joke on 2G network.
The students mentioned major concerns they face during the world’s longest lockdown & communication blackout. Irfan also chatted with Mr Javed, a parent and Peer Kifayat, a school principal & senior teacher who mentioned the problems parents, teachers & school management went through during the persistent lockdown.
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The Goods and Services Tax which is commonly referred to GST was passed in the parliament on the 29th of March 2017.
GST is a tax which is levied on most goods and services. It is an indirect tax which is collected at the point of consumption, and not at the point of origin. It replaced other taxes in the country such as Value Added Tax, excise duty, service tax, Central Sales Tax among others.
To understand the Goods and Services Tax process in detail and to know how the GST system works, Kunika Balhotra, Research and Communications Officer for Suno India spoke to Apeksha Solanki, a Chartered Accountant.
She also spoke to CP Chandrasekhar, Professor at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi who explained why the states were in conflict with the government over this tax. Professor Chandrasekhar has published widely in academic journals and is the co-author of Crisis as Conquest: Learning from East Asia, The Market that Failed: Neo-Liberal Economic Reforms in India and Promoting ICT for Human Development: India.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the situation of hunger in the country. A short survey conducted by the Right to Food Campaign titled ‘The Hunger Watch” reveals that people continue to have depressed incomes worsening their nutritional food intake. The survey conducted in September by the Right to Food Campaign tracked the situation of hunger amongst 4000 people from vulnerable and marginalised communities in 11 states across the country. For about one in four respondents, the income in September-October was half of what it was before lockdown. Over two-thirds say nutritional quality has worsened and quantity has reduced (in September-October) compared to pre-lockdown.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, Kunika Balhotra, Research & Communications Officer for Suno India reached out to Dipa Sinha Assistant Professor at Ambedkar University, New Delhi and a Convener of Right To Food Campaign to understand more about the Right to Food Campaign’s Hunger Watch survey and the situation of hunger in the country during the COVID19 pandemic.
Additional Notes: Hunger Watch Survey
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इस प्रकरण में संसद में हाल ही में पारित कानूनों और संशोधन के खिलाफ चल रहे किसान आन्दोलन पर चर्चा की शामिल हे।
कृषि उपज व्यापार और वाणिज्य, सवर्धन और विधेयक 2020 और किसान उपज व्यापार एवं वाणिज्य (संवर्धन एवं सुविधा) विधेयक, २०२० का उद्देशय कॉर्पोरेट खेती में मदद करना और किसानों की उपज को राज्य के भीतर और अंतर-राज्य व्यापार की अनुमति देना हे। इसके अलावा आवश्यक वस्तु अधिनियम में संशोधन जो एक अध्यादेश के रूप में पारित किया गया था, कुछ खाद्य पदार्थों की आपूर्ति को विनियमित करने के दायरे को कम करता है, और इसे केवल युद्ध या अकाल जैसी असाधारण परिस्थितियों में सीमित करता है।
इन्ही विधेयकों का जब किसानों ने 26 नवंबर को विरोध प्रदर्शन करने का आह्वान किया, तो हरियाणा और उत्तर प्रदेश की सरकारों ने दिल्ली की सीमाओं पर अवरोध पैदा किए।
सुनो इंडिया के योगदानकर्ता रिपोर्टर, सत्यम ने दिल्ली-हरियाणा सीमा पर सिंघू सीमा जो विरोध का स्थल बन हुई हे, से यह सूचना दी।
सत्यम ने हरियाणा के एक पत्रकार-कार्यकर्ता, मनदीप पुनिया, अखिल भारतीय किसान सभा के कामरेड विजू कृष्णन, किसान-कार्यकर्ताओं, सतवन सिंह और जसप्रीत कौर, और कृषि वैज्ञानिक प्रोफेसर राजेश्वरी रैना, जो दिल्ली के राष्ट्रीय कृषि अर्थशास्त्र और नीति अनुसंधान केंद्र, जिसे पूसा संस्थान भी कहा जाता है, के साथ काम करते थे, से बात इस विषय पर बात की।
यह प्रकरण हिंदी और पंजाबी में है।
(This episode covers the ongoing farmer’s protest against the laws and amendment passed recently in the Parliament.
The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Act, 2020 and the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020 aim to help corporate farming and allow intra-state and inter-state trade of farmers’ produce. The amendment in the Essential Commodities Act which was passed as an ordinance reduces the scope of regulating the supply of certain food items, and limits it only under extraordinary circumstances such as war or famine.
When the farmers gave a call to protest on November 26, the state governments of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh created barriers at the borders of Delhi. Suno India contributor, Satyam reported from the Singhu border at the Delhi- Haryana border which became a site of protest.
Satyam spoke to Mandeep Puniya, a journalist-activist from Haryana, Comrade Vijoo Krishnan from All India Kisan Sabha, farmer-activists, Satvan Singh and Jaspreet Kaur, and Professor Rajeshwari Raina, agricultural scientist who used to work with Delhi’s National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research also called Pusa Institute.
This episode is in Hindi and Punjabi.)
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been pitching for One Nation One Election multiple times over the years. Recently he mentioned it in his speech during the constitutional day on 26th November this year.
To understand the complexities and the challenges with simultaneous elections, Rakesh Kamal, Producer at Suno India and host for this episode of The Suno India Show talks to Chakshu Roy. Chakshu Roy heads the outreach team and leads the legislator and citizen engagement initiatives at PRS legislative research. He has been involved in setting up the state laws project, training civil society and journalist groups about tracking Parliament. Additional Reading material that discusses “simultaneous elections" in detail:PRS Summary of the Report Niti Aayog’s Analysis of Simultaneous Elections: The “What”, “Why” and “How”: A Discussion Paper (Jan 2017) Standing Committee Report on the feasibility of holding simultaneous elections (Dec 2015) Law Commission Report on Electoral Reforms (May 1999)
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The mid-March declaration of COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by several changes in the zoos around the world. Same was the case with Nehru Zoological Park of Hyderabad. The staff of the Nehru Zoological Park found themselves spending more time with the animals, documenting the behavioural changes, and enjoying the calm that the lack of visitors offered. With over 50 new births, there was no end to work at the zoo. Our contributor Ayesha Minhaz set out to find more details of the times. We spoke to curator N Kshitija, zoo veterinarian MA Hakeem, and senior zookeeper Mohammed Ayyub Kausar. Tune in to know more.
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What constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace? What are our rights? We, from Suno India, want women who are sexually harassed in the workplace to know their rights and how to go about filing a complaint and taking action against their perpetrators. In our previous episode, we told you how a criminal complaint of rape, sexual harassment, or molestation.. In this episode, we focus on provisions under Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition, and Redressal) Act or the POSH act, meant exclusively for sexual harassment at the workplace. This law is meant for women who want to just continue working in their organisations with dignity, without having to file a FIR. For this episode of The Suno India Show’s Every Indian’s Checklist, Suno India reporter Vaishali Pandiyen spoke with Abhimanyu Tewari, a Delhi-based lawyer about what women should keep in mind before raising a complaint before the workplace and what to expect after that.We referred to Shebox, which contains all the resources related to the POSH Act, Rules and other guidelines related to the POSH Act. Here’s the Human Rights Watch report on the 2018 study done by Martha Farrell Foundation and Society for Participatory Research in Asia.
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In a developing country like India, MSMEs are the backbone of the economy. The MSME sector contributes to 45% of India’s Total Industrial Employment, 50% of India’s Total Exports and 95% of all industrial units of the country and more than 6000 types of products are manufactured in these industries
Since March of this year, with COVID-19 spread and the nationwide lockdown, MSMEs are facing severe stress. The reverse migration of millions of people, who are at the core of this sector was an added blow to an already struggling sector.
To understand more about the role of MSMEs in Indian economy and how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the sector Kunika Balhotra, Research and Communications Officer for Suno India, spoke to Amit Basole, Associate Professor of Economics at Azim Premji University in Bangalore in this episode of our mini-series, Indian Economy Explained.
Previous Episode: Indian Economy Explained: Decoding India’s GDP And Economic Slowdown
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The new farm laws have brought along with it concerns about the lack of price and trade regulations. WIth no mention of Minimum Support Price (MSP) in the bills themselves, farmers are concerned that it could lead to exploitation. Protesting this, farmers unions across the country are joining hands with trade unions on November 26,2020 to protest “the unfair agricultural & labor law amendments”. Amidst the debate, the role of women farmers and their unique challenges find little to no space. In this episode of The Suno India Show, Suno India reporter Vaishali speaks to Sejal Dand of MAKAAM (Mahila Kisan Adhikaar Manch) about how these farm bills affect women farmers.
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In this episode, we speak to children about their experiences dealing with pollution during winter and festive season. The host, Menaka Rao spoke to Meenakshi, Sohail, Raj Abhishek and Prabudh and Suhani telling us more about pollution, and why we should not burst crackers during Diwali.
We also speak with Susan Thomas, a retired Head of Foundation School, Delhi who helped trace the origins of anti-pollution campaigns in schools which is now a wide spread movement. Thomas is a leader and mentor at Climate Reality Project, a non profit organisation involved in education and advocacy related to climate change. She is a British Council School Ambassador.
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The Indian economy is in the doldrums. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI), International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have all projected that the economy will shrink between 9-10 % in the current fiscal year. As the former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan said, demonetisation and the implementation of Good and Services Tax has already negatively affected the Indian economy.
If all this sounds very heavy to you, you are not alone. We are starting a mini series in the Suno India show called Indian Economy Explained, hosted by Kunika Balhotra, Research and Communications Officer for Suno India. This series, which will be spread across several months, we speak to reputed economists and people working in the financial sector. The series will delve into various aspects of the fledgling Indian economy and why it matters. In this first episode, we spoke to Dr Biswajit Nag, Professor and Head of Economics Division at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade to understand why GDP figures and its sharp fall in recent times matters to every Indian.
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In the run up to the results of Bihar Assembly Elections 2020, most of the exit polls had predicted that the Grand Alliance (Mahagathbandhan) would have an edge and were likely to form the next government. However, contrary to these predictions, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) is going to form the government in Bihar, again. How did this happen and why, despite the huge anti-incumbency against him, is Nitish Kumar going to become the CM for the fourth time in a row.
To understand all this, our guest podcaster Mahtab Alam speaks to three guests for the seventh and final episode of Suno India’s special mini-series on Bihar Assembly Elections 2020. The guests are Senior Journalist Bhasha Singh, Researcher and Election Analyst Ashish Ranjan and Public Policy Expert Anindo Banerjee.
In addition to the analysis of the results and the veracity of exit polls and surveys, they also discuss the challenges before the new government, especially in the wake of an election campaign around issues related to Employment, Education, Health and Migration.
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Voting for the third and final phase of the Bihar Assembly Elections 2020 will take place on November 07, 2020. In this phase, three regions of the state — Seemanchal, Kosi and Mithilanchal will be going to the polls. Some of the areas of these regions are listed as the most backwards areas/districts of India. To understand the local issues and ground level electoral scenario, our guest podcaster Mahtab Alam speaks to two reporters, Manoj Singh , a contributor at The Wire Hindi and Tanzil Asif, a Kishanganj based journalist and founder of the hyperlocal multimedia platform “Main Media”.
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Bihar is going for its second phase of polling tomorrow. In the first phase, which took place on October 28, a voter turnout of nearly 56 % was recorded. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, on Sunday said that the turnout in the first phase of the elections has made him confident of another term for the Nitish Kumar-led government.
For this episode of Election Nama, our guest podcaster Mahtab Alam speaks to two reporters, Shadab Moizee of The Quint and Basant Kumar of News Laundry, both of whom have been on the ground for nearly a month now. Unlike the Prime minister, they feel that the first phase seems to be favourably tilted towards the grand alliance and there is no wave for anyone. They also add that in the second phase, smaller parties and alliances are going to impact the elections result.
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Many of us would have heard that in case of sexual assault or harassment, we can always lodge a complaint to the police. We have also heard that many of these complaints don’t resolve easily or feel like resolution. Even as the laws and guidelines are meant to ease the experience of the complaining women, these are not all necessarily implemented. Our knowledge of rights will help us demand our rights.
In this episode of The Suno India Show’s Every Indian Checklist, Suno India reporter Vaishali Pandiyen speaks to Abhimanyu Tewari, a Delhi-based lawyer, and advocate Sana Wahab who is based in Hyderabad to understand all legal procedures in a case of sexual crime including how to file FIR, what happens during investigation, and the trial finally.
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On August 5, 2019, the Central government abrogated article 370 of the Indian constitution that gave the state of Jammu and Kashmir its autonomy. The Indian government also issued a military-style lockdown and a complete blocking of communication. Immediately after August 5, Kashmiris could not speak to anyone over the phone, or use the internet. The state has now partially restored the internet by letting the residents use 2G internet and broadband. These measures have badly dented the economy of the region. Just when Kashmir was opening up, COVID-19 struck and the all-India lockdown was instituted.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, freelance journalist, Bilal Hussain spoke to the Kashmiri entrepreneurs who said that their businesses simply closed down and that they had to let go of people working for them. In this podcast, Kashmiri locals including an aspiring chef, hotelier, industrialist, IT businessman, and civil society shared their experiences and anguish.
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In the ongoing Assembly Elections of Bihar, “Rozgar” (Jobs/Employment) and “Siksha” (Education) have emerged as the main issues in the electoral campaigns of different political parties. But there are several other pressing issues which are not either discussed or discussed marginally. What are those issues and why are they not becoming Election Issues?
To understand this, our guest podcaster Mahtab Alam spoke to two experts, journalist Umesh Kumar Ray and Journalist-Writer Pushya Mitra, who has been reporting from Bihar on a range of issues related to Health, Environment and Disaster.
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In 2006, civil society organisations of Bihar released an “Alternative White Paper” on the issues of development and governance in the state. This was done in the context of an official White Paper released by the newly elected Nitish Kumar government on the 15-year-long Lalu Yadav-Rabri Devi regime. Anindo Banerjee, who is a Patna based researcher and public policy expert, was a part of it. He is currently the Head of Programme Initiatives at Praxis – Institute for Participatory Practices.
In this episode of Election Nama on Bihar Assembly Elections 2020, our guest podcaster Mahtab Alam speaks to Anindo Banerjee on what has changed over the past 15 years and how he assess’ Nitish Kumar’s regime, on how different or similar has it been to the Lalu Yadav-Rabri Devi regime. And, above all, what needs to be done for better development and governance in Bihar.
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Bihar Assembly Polls 2020 are the first direct elections to be held amidst the ongoing pandemic. Is this the only reason why the assembly polls have been considered different or are there other reasons for it as well?
To analyse this, our guest podcaster Mahtab Alam speaks to two experts, namely, Patna based senior journalist, Rajni Shankar and Researcher and Election Analyst, Ashish Ranjan. In addition to the question of what is different about these elections, they also discuss issues related to the representation of Women in these elections, the impact of ‘reverse migration’ and the Lokniti-CSDS pre-poll survey that has given an edge to NDA.
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Bihar Assembly Elections 2020 is all set to start from Wednesday, October 28. The polls will be held in three phases and the counting of votes will take place on November 10. In the coming days, we will be discussing different aspects of the polls, politics and issues in Bihar in this special mini-series of “The Suno India Show”
For this inaugural episode, our guest podcaster Mahtab Alam speaks to senior journalist Ravish Kumar on what he thinks of this election. Kumar believes that this time around, the elections have been very different from the past as perhaps for the first time, issues like “Rozgar” (Jobs/Employment) and “Siksha” (Education) have become the main talking points.
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The Government of India has recorded more than one lakh people have died of COVID-19. There have been allegations of undercounting of COVID-19 deaths. One way to understand the extent of the toll of the pandemic and lockdown is to measure excess deaths.
Menaka Rao from Suno India spoke to researchers Aashish Gupta and Kanika Sharma, who attempted to seek and collect data related to excess deaths along with other young researchers.
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In this final episode of our mini-series “Mental Health during COVID-19”, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer spoke with Nidhi Gupta, a 28 year old communication professional to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown has affected people with pre-existing mental illnesses.
A Lancet study published this year said that one in seven Indians were affected by some kind of mental disorder. A report released by the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in April stated that any pre-existing psychiatric conditions like psychosis, mood disorders, anxiety spectrum disorders, sleep disorders, among others can exacerbate during the quarantine.
Nidhi Gupta spoke about how the lockdown triggered anxiety in her case, and how she sought care to cope with it.
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The COVID-19 pandemic has aggravated both the economic and social problems among the LGBTI (lesbain, gay, bisexual, transgender, or intersex) community, which have affected their mental health. The COVID-19 induced lockdown has cut them off from their own spaces which provided respite for them.
In the third episode of this mini-series, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer spoke with Shivangi Agrawal, a queer disability consultant, Pawan Dhall, Founding Trustee of Varta Trust and Shivalal Gautam, a queer activist from Guwahati, Assam and the co-founder of Xomonnoy.
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The COVID-19 Pandemic in India has been the hardest on the elderly. They have been advised by the health officials and their family members to stay indoors due to the risk of COVID-19 infection. The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted older people’s daily routines – and their ability to stay socially connected with their relatives, friends, family and even their grandchildren.To understand more about the impact of COVID-19 induced lockdown and the pandemic, Kunika Balhotra, Suno India’s Research and Communications Officer interviewed Dr Debanjan Banerjee, a resident doctor at geriatric psychiatry at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore and two elderly women to understand the impact of COVID-19 Pandemic in their lives.
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Eight months into the pandemic, health workers have been working under tremendous stress and face a complete burnout. Apart from the risk of catching the infection, the burdens of the job also put pressure on their mental health. On the occasion of World Mental Health Day on October 10, Suno India is releasing the first episode of our mini-series on the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on mental health.In this first episode, we feature resident doctors and ASHA workers who work for the overburdened public health system. Kunika Balhotra, our Research and Communications Officer spoke with Dr Migita D Cruz, a resident doctor at the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences in Bangalore and Dr Siva Kamesh who works at Osmania General Hospital in Hyderabad to understand how COVID-19 has changed their lives.
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In September 2020, four Thakur men allegedly raped and killed a 19-year old woman in Hathras district of Uttar Pradesh. Her family members alleged that the police cremated her without their consent.
This week in The Suno India Show, we speak with Gujarat-based lawyer and civil rights activist Manjula Pradeep who works closely with the marginalised communities for nearly three decades. She is the former Executive Director of Navsarjan Trust that works on Dalit rights. The organisation played an important role in Dalit uprising across Gujarat in 2016 after four Dalit tanners from Una district were stripped and assualted by cow vigilantes. She is now with WAYVE foundation that focuses on the marginalised youth in India. She is also the director of campaigns at Dalit Human Rights Defenders Network which is a coalition of more than 1000 Dalit-rights organisations from different states of India.
In this episode, we try to understand why the caste identity of the victim also matters in the understanding of the Hathras rape and murder case.
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On September 23, the government amended the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2010. This law that regulates the foreign funds that are received by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) has become more stringent. The recent amendments will potentially make it harder for NGOs, particularly the grassroot ones, to avail of foreign funds.We speak to Harsh Jaitli, the CEO of Voluntary Action Network India that represents around 10,000 organisations to understand the impact of the recent legislation on civil society.
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COVID-19 tests are done both for diagnosis and for surveillance. With many tests available for testing in various government and private labs, it’s important to understand when to get tested, how these tests are done and what the test results indicate. This episode of Every Indian’s Checklist will help understand more about COVID-19 tests with Dr Arjun Dang, CEO of Dangs Lab in Delhi NCR.
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The new National Education Policy, (NEP) 2020 was launched on July 29, 2020 came under criticism by many experts. While it has the lofty vision of increasing the budget of education and 100% enrolment of school education up to the secondary level, there is little clarity on how these goals will be achieved.
In this episode of the Suno India Show, Tarun Nirwan, co-founder and digital lead at Suno India spoke to Kiran Bhatty, senior fellow at Centre for Policy research about the National Education Policy, 2020.
Kiran has served as the national coordinator for Right to Education or RTE at the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and as an education expert on a range of national and international projects, including the committees that established the guidelines for merging the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) with the RTE. She currently serves on the Advisory Committee for Data and Management Systems at the National University for Education Planning and Administration (NUEPA).
Additional reading:The National Education Policy Has a Grand Vision but Can't See Its Own FeetThe National Education Policy on School Education
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On 15 September, the Union Health Minister Dr Harshvardhan said in the parliament, that they do not keep any records of health workers who died of COVID-19. We at Suno India spoke to the health workers- Surekha, General Secretary of ASHA workers Union in Haryana, Indian Medical Association Honorary Secretary General, Dr RV Asokan and Jibin TC, president of United Nurses Association in Maharashtra who expressed anger at this apathy.
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The United Nations Population Fund released a report in April this year titled “Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Family Planning and Ending Gender-based Violence, Female Genital Mutilation and Child Marriage”. According to the report, the COVID-19 pandemic would result in 13 million additional child marriages worldwide, over the next decade. Media reports show a sharp increase in child marriages during the COVID-19 lockdown in states such as Karnataka and Maharashtra. Other states like Telangana and Andhra Pradesh have also witnessed a sharp increase in the number of child marriages during the lockdown period. To understand the spike in the number of child marriages amid the coronavirus pandemic, Kunika Balhotra, our Research & Communications Officer reached out to representatives of nonprofits working in child rights space- Prabhat Kumar from Save the Children who lead the Child Protection portfolio which measures and builds structures to prevent and respond to abuse, neglect, exploitation and violence affecting children and Kumar Nilendu from CRY (Child Rights & You) who heads the program team for CRY in the Western Region i.e Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa and Chhattisgarh. I also reached out to Mr BP Suryavanshi from Kalapandhari NGO which is CRY’s partner organisation from the past 20 years in Maharashtra and the Concerned for Working Children which is a not-for-profit secular, democratic development agency based in Bangalore.
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India’s first national mental health rehabilitation helpline was launched recently*, to provide mental health support in 13 languages. The Social Justice and Empowerment Ministry launched it to enable better access to mental health resources. The “Kiran” mental health rehabilitation helpline number 1800-599-0019, will give callers “support for early screening, first-aid, psychological support, distress management, mental well-being, preventing deviant behaviours, and psychological crisis management, etc.”
For this episode of The Suno India Show, ahead of the National Suicide Prevention Day, we set out to find answers for some questions such as “Will I reach out for mental health support whenever I just feel like talking to someone or when I’m in the middle of a crisis?” And how does this national helpline fit in the larger discussion around access to mental health resources.
You will hear from Gaurav Kumar Bansal, a mental health advocate who has filed multiple PILs in SC to implement mental health policies, Aparna Joshi from iCALL, which is a national level free psychosocial counseling service. You will also hear from Raashi Thakran who turned a deeply personal tragedy into a campaign demanding for a national mental health helpline and Jasmine Kalha, the program manager and research fellow at the Center for Mental Health Law and Policy, Indian Law Society also weighs in on the helpline.
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According to the National Crime Records Bureau’s report of 2019, 1.54 lakh people died and 4.39 lakh people were injured in the 4.3 lakh accidents that happened last year. India ranked 1st in the number of road accident deaths across the 199 countries reported in the World Road Statistics of 2018, followed by China and US. As per the WHO Global Report on Road Safety 2018, India accounts for almost 11% of the accident related deaths in the World *. The maximum number of accident cases were reported in Tamil Nadu, and the maximum fatalities in Uttar Pradesh. Most of the victims were driving two wheelers, and the major cause of accidents is over speeding.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, we spoke to Piyush Tiwari, founder and CEO of SaveLIFE Foundation, an organisation which works for road safety and emergency medical care across India, and Ganesh Janarthanam, state body member of Thozhan, an NGO that has been working towards an Accident-Free Nation since 2012.
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Home-based workers are those who work at home, regardless of whether it is their default place of work. They’re predominantly the bottom of supply chains in garment industries, domestic work, packaging units, hawking, vending, coir making, papad making, beedi work, etc. Aajeevika Bureau reported that migrant women who do home-based work for over 8 hours a day to make just Rs 10-15 during the pandemic . Home Workers are part of the gig economy, which currently has over 2 billion workers worldwide . According to Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO), India has 7.3 million women home-based workers in urban areas. Over 50 lakh homeworkers are estimated in the garment and textile supply chains alone. In India, there is no specific national policy for home-based workers, as their employers are often challenging to identify. Worker Welfare Boards are their only options.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, we spoke with Sujatha Mody from Pen Thozhilalargal Sangam, a working women's organisation in Chennai, to understand how women who work from their homes are recognised and how their lives were impacted by the pandemic.
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The rapid spread of COVID19 and the sudden nationwide lockdown limiting the movement of 1.3 billion people disrupted the supply chain of essential hygiene products like sanitary pads, contraceptive pills etc and the access to sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities for many women and girls. In low and middle-income countries like India, the increasing number of cases have burdened the healthcare infrastructure. And the massive shift of health resources from regular healthcare services to combating the pandemic has placed many women and young girls at risk of unwanted pregnancies and no access to abortions.
Recently a report “The Impact of COVID-19 on women’s lives and reproductive health” released by Marie Stopes International asking an online sample of 1000 women aged 16-50 per country in the UK, South Africa and India about their experiences and awareness of sexual and reproductive healthcare before and during the COVID-19 pandemic stated that 30% of respondents in India who were seeking an abortion reported that the clinic in their areas was closed, 30% said that the wait time for an appointment was 1–2 weeks while 9% said that the wait-time was more than 5 weeks.
To know more about the report and the impact on access to sexual and reproductive healthcare facilities during the pandemic, our Research and Communications Officer, Kunika Balhotra reached out to Sanghamitra Singh, a health scientist, who works with Population Foundation of India’s research and evaluation team and Sana Contractor, a Public Health Researcher who has been volunteering with a group called the Medical Support Group to help people especially with non-COVID complaints to access care during the lockdown.
Additional Reading:
Study by IPAS
A study by Marie Stopes International
Study by PFI
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The confirmed COVID19 cases in India have touched 2.98 million as on date. We at Suno India have been looking at the various efforts being deployed for pandemic management in the country and presenting critical voices since early on.
We set out to find what the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, popularly known as CCMB has been working on, during the ongoing COVID19 pandemic. Established in 1977, CCMB is a premier research institute in the field of modern biology in India.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, Ayesha Minhaz spoke with Dr Rakesh Mishra, the director of CCMB. From validating the testing kits to working on innovating cheaper test kits, CCMB has been involved in improving the country’s capacity in pandemic management in several ways. Dr Mishra speaks to us about all the ongoing extensive work. See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.
A community radio is where people from the local community produce and broadcast their own programs and have their own radio station. In India, there are 289 community radios who through their unique programming cater to the needs of the local population. Like every other organisation, COVID-19 pandemic lockdown had affected their mobility and migrant crisis and local issues had them more on-demand. It is a community space for people to meet and collaborate, with a radius of 5-15km. The content they produce is more relevant to the local folk and also act as a networking space for the community. In this episode of The Suno India Show, we reached out to community station heads and policy makers Arti Jaiman from Gurgaon Ki Awaaz, Mukesh Mohankumar from Rathinavani 90.8 MHz in Coimbatore and Venu Arora from Ideosync Combine, to understand how the community radios are functioning during COVID-19 pandemic and the critical role they are playing.
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Indian Government recently announced the new Consumer Protection Rules of 2020 for all businesses, including e-commerce. More regulations and penalties have been introduced to ensure fair and accountable service to the consumers. With the pandemic having accelerated small businesses getting into e-commerce space and e-retail consumption, it’s crucial to ensure fair practice. All e-commerce sites should clearly state the prices of goods and services, breakdown of charges, products’ expiry date, country of origin, sellers’ details and more. They should set up grievance redressal cells and appoint a nodal officer, and ensure all complaints are acknowledged within 48 hours and resolved within a month. Location and contact details of the sellers, full details of operations, contact details, address, landline and mobile numbers of customer care should be provided. Most importantly, the sellers can’t refuse to return defective or deficient goods. Cancellation charges can’t be imposed unless similar charges are also borne by the sellers.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, Vaishali spoke with Dr Sudhir Raveendran, who heads the corporate law firm Altacit global, about the new e-commerce rules. Altacit global is a one-stop-shop for corporate entities, for contracts, legal strategy for disputes, international ventures, and more. See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.
Patients with severe covid-19 disease need hospital care, intensive care. Some of them will need to be put on a ventilator. According to an April 2020 report of the Centre for Disease Dynamics Economics and Policy , there are an estimated 19 lakh hospital beds in India, 95,000 ICU beds and 48,000 ventilators. Most of these are concentrated in the metros of seven states. These were not enough before covid-19. Public hospitals have always been overburdened. Now with the pandemic, they are overwhelmed. There are distressing accounts of exhausted healthcare providers trying to cope with the flood of patients with this disease. Without protective equipment and safety protocols, they are getting infected in large numbers. And health professionals faced with crowds of sick people and limited resources may be forced to decide who to treat first, and when to withdraw treatment. This dilemma is faced by healthcare providers across South Asia. In April this year, the Centre for Biomedical Ethics and Culture (CBEC) in the Sind Institute of Urology and Transplantation in Karachi, Pakistan published guidelines for ethical healthcare decision-making in the COVID-19 pandemic in Pakistan. CBEC is the first and the only centre for biomedical ethics in Pakistan In this episode, Sandhya Srinivasan, consulting editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics spoke to Dr Farhat Moazam is the founder and chairperson of CBEC about how one decides the allocation of critical medical equipment with the rising number of COVID-19 cases and about the guidelines published by CBEC. See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.
There is an urgent need to find a cure for COVID-19. Old drugs that have been developed and approved for one disease are now being evaluated to see if they can be used to reduce the severity and to bring down mortality of this new disease. Some drugs have been proven to be effective. Some have been found to have limited impact. Yet others have not been proven effective but are widely used anyway. All but one of these drugs is priced in the tens of thousands of rupees per course of treatment out of reach of most patients of COVID-19. Add the charges for other drugs and for the hospital. Families of patients are looking at bills of lakhs and lakhs of rupees. The bulk of people falling ill with COVID-19 are the poor and most vulnerable to infection because of their cramped living conditions, or because their work requires interaction with the public, such as frontline healthcare workers, bus conductors, shopkeepers, street vendors. But their doctors have told them that these drugs work. So they are among those standing in long lines outside pharmacies, for medicines which cost Rs 30,000 upwards.
In this episode, Sandhya Srinivasan, consulting editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics talks to Advocate Veena Johari who has worked for decades on legal action and has recently written a letter on behalf of the Cancer Patients’ Aid Association to revoke a patent on Remdesivir. See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.
It’s been over four months since the WHO declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic; millions of people worldwide have been infected, and more than half a million have died of this disease. While today the best response may be to track, test, track, isolate and treat, many public health communities believe that the virus is not going to go away without a vaccine. But it will take years to develop a vaccine moving from the lab to testing them for safety and efficacy, getting regulatory approval manufacturing at scale and finally reaching it to all the people who need it. Despite what the Indian Council of Medical Research has indicated, and then later denied, vaccines don't go from the lab to the shot in your arm in six weeks. The process of research into vaccine development also raises some very important ethical issues. What are the ethical challenges involved in the research and development of vaccines?
For this episode, Sandhya Srinivasan, consulting editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics asks Dr Amar Jesani, a senior bioethicist and editor of the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics very pertinent questions regarding the ethical challenges of using controlled human infection studies for a COVID 19 vaccine.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.
With confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide surpassing 13 million with no sign of it slowing down, scientists are pushing forward with efforts to find and develop vaccines and treatments to slow down the pandemic and lessen the virus’ effects. It is estimated that some of the earliest treatments will likely be drugs that are already approved for other conditions and have been tested on other viruses. Many groups across the world are also working on potential COVID-19 vaccines with several also backed by the nonprofit Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). Currently there are more than 150 projects around the world centred on the development of COVID-19 vaccine. According to a WHO summary of the state of vaccine development for COVID-19, there are 23 potential vaccines in human trials, with three of them in or starting large-scale late stage, or Phase III, trials to test efficacy.
More recently, vaccine development and discussion came into limelight after a letter by Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) was circulated widely which set August 15 as a deadline for vaccine to be rolled out. While ICMR later clarified that the letter was internal and was aimed at bypassing the “red tape” surrounding vaccine research, lot of experts and ethicists raised concerns on this.
In this episode, Suno India editor Padma Priya spoke with Dr Shahid Jameel, the Chief Executive Officer of the DBT Wellcome Trust India Alliance, which is a biomedical research charity which funds research at not for profit institutions in India. See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.
A number of old drugs approved for other diseases are being “repurposed” and tested for their safety and efficacy in COVID-19, in systematic clinical trials. They have emergency approval for use in COVID-19, but most are not yet proven for this use. Some drugs have received approval without adequate testing. Other drugs are being used without getting approval for use in COVID-19. All these drugs are being prescribed widely by doctors, outside of clinical trials.
In this episode, Sandhya Srinivasan, consulting editor for the Indian Journal of Medical Ethics spoke with Dr SP Kalantri, director professor of medicine at the Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences, Sewagram, and medical superintendent of the Kasturba Hospital there. One focus of his work has been the epidemiology of chronic diseases at the primary and secondary levels.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.
Since the COVID pandemic began in Wuhan, China, one common feature over the last seven months has been the incessant misinformation or fake news as we call it that has spread across the world. For fact-checking organisations, their work has doubled and tripled over the last few months. They are filling a critical gap and are having to work in a more real-time manner than ever before.
In this episode of The Suno India Show, Suno India editor Padma Priya will be talking to public health experts Mohit Nair and Nat Gyenes who work for Meedan which is an international technology non-profit that builds software and designs human-powered initiatives for newsrooms.See sunoindia.in/privacy-policy for privacy information.