The Suno India Show (Suno India)

Owing to the water shortage in Delhi, the state’s Water Minister Atishi began an indefinite fast on June 21 demanding water for the national capital. The Delhi state government said that it has not got its share of Yamuna water, and there is an urgent need for a sustainable solution.

The debate over fair distribution of Yamuna water has persisted for years. This is not the first such inter-state water dispute. In this episode, Suno India’s Sneha Richhariya  speaks to Srinivas Chokkakula, who is the President and Chief Executive of the CPR (Centre for Policy Research). He is the Ministry of Jal Shakti Research Chair for Water Conflicts and Governance at CPR, leading the Transboundary Rivers, Ecologies, and Development studies program that he founded. His research focuses on transboundary water conflict, cooperation, and governance, with extensive publications on these topics. He talks about the legal implications of such disputes, and the politics around it and the possible solutions. 

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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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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 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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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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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. 

As of April 18, 2022 the Criminal Procedure (Identification) Bill became a law. Henceforth it will be called Criminal Procedure (Identification) Act, 2022.

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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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. 

References
THE 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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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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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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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 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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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 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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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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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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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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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. 

Full transcription

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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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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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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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 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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‘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 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Recently, a father and his son died in Visakhapatnam after their pet dog bit them. Reports say that they did not take the anti-rabies vaccine soon enough.

Rabies is one of the oldest zoonotic diseases. People are often bitten by street dogs, who are present in great numbers in both cities, and villages of the country. With around 60 million free-ranging dogs, India arguably has the biggest population of street dogs in the world. Most of these dogs aren’t vaccinated against rabies. Most of the rabies cases are dog-mediated.

The WHO says that low awareness of the need to seek healthcare after dog bites claims the lives of 55000 people each year globally, mostly in Asia and Africa. True burden of rabies in India is not fully known, but as per given information, it causes 18000 to 20,000 deaths each year. 

This episode was brilliantly reported by Mahima Jain which got a special mention at One World Media's Podcast and Radio Award in 2022. The podcast takes you through the many factors that complicate rabies control and dog welfare in India. 

The episode talks about:

• The link between street dogs and India’s struggles with rabies elimination. 
• The kind of treatment that is effective against rabies, and how the Indian healthcare system poses a challenge in providing effective care for those who contract rabies.
• How India ended up with an overpopulation of street dogs
• Potential barriers in implementing the National Action Plan for Rabies Elimination by 2030

References

Man, son die of rabies after pet dog bites them in Visakhapatnam - The Hindu

Rabies as a Public Health Concern in India—A Historical Perspective

Overview of Animal Laws in India

Centers For Disease Control and Prevention: Global Rabies Work

US National Library of Medicine: Striking back against rabies

Burden of illness of dog-mediated rabies in India: A systematic review

Modelling the challenges of managing free-ranging dog populations

WHO Rabies: Rabies 

News: 

• India sees 1.75 million dog bites every year, yet we face up to 80% shortage of anti-rabies vaccines
• Rabies deaths down by a third in three years in India, but snakebites continue to kill | Health - Hindustan Times
• In the Himalayas, growing population of feral dogs poses threat to wildlife, humans – Firstpost  
• Over 300 dogs poisoned to death by Andhra village panchayat, alleges activist
• 5 doses over days, keep rabies away - The Hindu 

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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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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 Dileep 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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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 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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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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This is the second episode of a series Matter of Choice, a series that explores how women face medical, legal and social barriers to abortions. This episode is based in Delhi where despite facilities, women are given a run-around for abortions. In this episode, Menaka Rao speaks to three women who had a hard time seeking abortion in the country’s capital. These women were either treated with disrespect, or asked for very hefty fees in the private sector, often with very little assurance that the provider will provide abortion. Menaka speaks to these women at the non-profit Parivar Seva Sanstha which provides them with safe, affordable abortion care. The NGO has clinics in 11 states of India, including Delhi. Menaka also speaks with Neelam Rao who runs its clinics in Delhi. 

This podcast is supported by Pulitzer Centre

References

 Parivar Seva Sanstha

https://nhm.gov.in/images/pdf/programmes/maternal-health/guidelines/CAC_Training_&_Service_Guidelines_2023.pdf

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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 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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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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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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Punjabis are infamous for their obsession with migrating abroad, especially to Canada. There’s a saying among diaspora Punjabis that goes, “Jitthe assi, utthe Punjab,” meaning “We create Punjab wherever we go.” But, in the recent past, a new narrative of ‘Vatan vaapsi’ or ‘Reverse Migration’ has taken hold in Punjabi media. According to podcasts and some news articles, Punjabis are sick of living abroad and are excited to return to their homeland. 

In this episode, Kudrat Wadhwa investigates how much truth there is to the claim that Punjabis are returning to India and why people are coming back, if they are. 

References: 

Is a waning Canadian dream fuelling reverse migration in Punjab?

91% Parents ‘satisfied’ Over Their Wards Moving Abroad, Says Study | Chandigarh News - Times of India

Back to Motherland | Reverse Migration | Part 6 | EP 68 | Punjabi Podcast

Punjabi Students Becoming Homeless In Canada | ਕੈਨੇਡਾ ਵਿਚ ਬੇਘਰੇ ਹੋ ਰਹੇ ਪੰਜਾਬੀ ਸਟੂਡੈਂਟਸ

Homless 6 punjabi munde te ik kudi dekho kime reh rhe ne

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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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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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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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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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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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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 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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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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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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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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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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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 Giridhar 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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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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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 is the research head 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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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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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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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 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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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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Abortion is legal in India with certain conditions. But it is  hard to access in many parts of the country, especially in rural India. An estimated eight women die everyday from abortions in India. This series called - Matter of Choice- will explore how women face medical, legal and social  barriers to abortion.

In this first episode, Menaka Rao goes to villages in Azamgarh where women have little or no options for legal abortions. Blind alley abortions are common, with unqualified doctors or quacks offering abortion, putting the women’s lives at risk. What is it like to undergo such a risky abortion procedure? Menaka speaks with three women who underwent these procedures and hears their stories. 

This podcast was supported by the Pulitzer Center

If you want to listen to the voices of the women in Hindi, here is the link

Show notes

Gramin Punarnirman Sansthan
Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act of 2021
Abortion: Safety
Clinical practice handbook for quality abortion care
https://prsindia.org/files/bills_acts/bills_parliament/2020/Medical%20Termination%20of%20Pregnancy%20(Amendment)%20Rules,%202021.pdf
The incidence of abortion and unintended pregnancy in India, 2015 - The Lancet Global Health

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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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This episode explores the barriers faced by women who are pregnant before they turn single, either by widowhood or marital separation, or any other reason. This is the third episode of a series Matter of Choice, a series that explores how women face medical, legal and social barriers to abortions.

In this episode, Menaka Rao speaks with a woman whose husband died when she was pregnant, leaving her to make the tough choice. We discuss the legal precedents in relation to women who sought an abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy when they were either widowed or separated. 

This episode was supported by the Pulitzer Centre.

References

X vs. Principal Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department, Govt. of NCT of Delhi and Another

Woman asks to terminate 22-week pregnancy as she wants divorce, Delhi HC seeks medical report

Mrs B vs Union of India Oct 2023

R vs Union of India 23 JANUARY, 2024 

Poonam Sharma vs Union Of India on 9 October, 2023

Human rights including a supportive framework of law and policy (1.3.1) - Abortion care guideline

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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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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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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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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 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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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 Nadu judgment

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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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TW: This episode contains mentions of suicide. 

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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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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It has been more than a year since the Supreme court released Narayan Chetanram Chaudhary in March 2023. Narayan was convicted along with his co-accused for gruesome murders in Pune and sentenced to death. But after 28 years of jail, the Supreme court released him as per the Juvenile Justice Act after it was proved that he was just 12 years old at the time of offence. 

How is he coping with life outside jail? In this podcast, Menaka Rao visited him in his village in Bikaner to understand how Narayan is managing life in society.

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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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