This week, host Basant Kumar is joined by Newslaundry’s Sumedha Mittal and Pratyush Deep.
Sumedha talks about her report on Bihar’s Special Intensive Revision (SIR). Her investigation revealed that even after this massive exercise, the ECI has conferred wrong house numbers to lakhs of voters. This, she says, creates the perfect opportunity to fill the lacunae with fake voters. After the ECI’s SIR, over 1,000 voters in Bihar were grouped under a single non-existent house. Her investigation highlights that whatever mistakes were there in the electoral roll are still on the list even after the SIR.
Pratyush’s report highlighted Assam’s 3,000-bigha land row and the controversy around it. While the story played out on social media, with claims that the land was being handed over to the Adani Group, Pratyush’s report reveals that it is, in fact, Mahabal Cement that had ownership of the land.
In another report from Assam, Pratyush follows the complainants behind recent FIRs against journalists, who ostensibly had links to the BJP or the RSS student wing ABVP.
Tune in.
Timecodes
00:00:00 - Introduction
00:05:06 - Loopholes in SIR
00:23:30 - Illegal land allotment
00:33:54 - FIRs against Journalists
00:44:25 - Recommendations
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Pratyush
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Produced and edited by Saif Ali Ekram, recorded by Anil Kumar.
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