While COVID-19 is rapidly spreading in Europe including Italy, France and the UK, 134 people have tested positive in India as of March 17 evening. So far, three patients who tested positive died. The Central government has proposed “social distancing” measures including the closure of educational institutions, museums, gyms, cultural and social centres, swimming pools and theatres. The government has said that “non-essential” travel should be avoided and encouraged private sector organisations to allow their employees to work from home. But what happens to those who are not able to isolate themselves and depend on daily wages?  To discuss this and more Menaka Rao, Independent Journalist interviewed Dr T Sundararaman, the Global Coordinator of People’s Health Movement to understand the impact of the pandemic in India where more than 20% of people live below the poverty line. The People’s Health Movement released a statement on Monday with 13 demands which foregrounded the rights of people for social security and for the government to address income inequalities. We also spoke about how the government can ensure the control of the pandemic without infringing on people’s human rights.

The Suno India Show

Social distancing for COVID 19- what it does to the poor

On March 11, the World Health Organisation declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic. From 3 people testing positive in early February to 102 people now, the exponential growth has led to widespread measures being taken by various state governments as well as the central government such as the closure of educational institutions, public gatherings among other measures. As India gears up with containment measures, Suno India Editor Padma Priya reached out to Dr Anant Bhan, a researcher and expert in Bioethics, Global Health and Health Policy to talk about the Corona Virus response by the government and how health inequities and access to health matter in times of pandemic. We also speak about the importance of closer linkage between public and private medical facilities, need for efficient risk communication as well the role of a citizen in these times.

Why investing in public health infrastructure is vital to tackle outbreaks like COVID-19

In FY 2018-19, the Union Budget proposed to improve school education in a holistic manner and launched the Samagra Shiksha programme in April 2018. In the recently announced union budget, the Government of India allocated Rs 38,751crore for Samagra Shiksha in FY 2020-21. The Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan is an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class 12 and has been prepared with the broader goal of improving school effectiveness and better learning outcomes. To know more about Samagra Shikha and how the budget is allocated-we reached out to Mridusmita Bordoloi, a senior researcher at the Accountability Initiative, Centre for Policy Research.

What is Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan?

The ongoing anti-CAA protests taking place in Shaheen Bagh, Delhi has largely been led by Muslim women from the area. Many others have also joined this sit-in protest where women through slogans, protest poetry and speeches are expressing their dissent on the amended law. The Shaheen Bagh protests have also inspired similar sit-ins in the city and across the nation. Their resolve unshaken and unbroken, the women of India have come out in an unprecedented manner onto the streets against CAA-NRC-NPR.  In an atmosphere where women activists are not being spared and fears of fascism on the rise are no longer unfounded, The Suno India Show reached out to Neha Dixit, an award-winning investigative journalist on why the women's representation on street is important, why feminist movements are also anti-fascist movements. Neha also tells us what she saw in Delhi post the horrific communal violence that rocked the city leaving over 50 dead and more than 400 injured.

Nationwide CAA protests led by women are an antithesis to Hindutva politics - Neha Dixit

In the last week of February, unprecedented communal violence was seen in the North-Eastern part of  Delhi. 49 people have died, more than 200 injured and thousands rendered homeless due to the destruction and looting of their houses and shops.  Religious places were attacked and mobs wrecked havoc in the streets. Since then, Many social activists and the Jan Swasthya Abhiyan team have been coordinating the public health system response to survivors and victims of the violence.  At a press conference held in Delhi on March 2, Jan Swasthya Abhiyan released a report documenting the challenges that were faced by victims in accessing and seeking health care in this time of violence and the steps that the government needs to take to ensure that the system plays a constructive role in helping survivors heal from trauma and get justice.  To understand the immediate concerns of the victims, the activists' own experiences and whether ongoing relief efforts adequately address the needs of the victims, The Suno India Show spoke to activists Anjali Bharadwaj and Dr Harjit Singh Bhatti. Reporting by Kunika Balhotra.

In Delhi riots, victims were denied access to medical care says report by Jan Swasthiya Abhiyan

Recently, the Ministry of Health released a draft policy on rare disease. The policy mentions providing a one-time financial assistance of 15 lakhs to patients with rare disease. It is seen as a major let down from the previous draft in 2017 which mentioned a 100 crore corpus with both state and central governments providing assistance to the corpus for an estimate 70 million people living with rare diseases. To discuss this and more, ahead of the rare disease day, Suno India Editor Padma Priya spoke with Host of our rare disease podcast 1 in 20000.

New draft policy for people with rare diseases a let down

What would you do if you got an email with your Gmail or Facebook password, saying that your email account, your mobile phone and laptop, including your front camera have been hacked, and that your sensitive information will be leaked if you don’t give them huge sum of money? Would you delete that email, or send them the money or take it up legally? If you think, ha, I’d not give them money, think again.  Cyberspace has enabled people to take the crimes from a brick and mortar level their phones, laptops and the internet. It breaks geographical and legal barriers and often happens in minutes. Most of us panic and delete proof of such threats or frauds. The best of us, fall for it. In this episode of Every Indian’s Checklist, we have Ritesh Bhatia, a cyber crime investigator and Vaishali Bhagwat, a cyber crime advocate with us, to take us through the things we should always keep in mind to report cyber crimes to the cops.

Every Indian's Checklist: How to protect yourself from Cyber Crimes ?

Imagine if you had to look into videos of people being beaten and things being burnt just because there are riots going on and people have started posting wrong videos from other attacks. That’s just one day of a fact checker. In today’s social media age, it isn’t very difficult to spread disinformation. Because so many of us just hit forward without verifying! In this episode of our special series Every Indian’s Checklist, we will talk about how to verify common content like news, social media posts, and shared videos and images. To explore what constitutes fake news, how to spot it, we reached out to Pratik Sinha, the founder of AltNews, a fact checking website.

Every Indian's Checklist: Why factchecking is the need of the hour?

Dear listeners, on this day last year, we started The Suno India Show.  The idea behind the show was to try and make sense of the overload of information that we are buried under each day. We wanted to move away from the culture of breaking news and bring to you, our listeners, nuanced conversations about issues facing us in today’s day and age. The Suno India Show takes news slowly and asks pertinent questions on what’s really going on in the world – whether in politics, climate, health, gender, culture and technology and also asks but what’s driving it. Our first episode started with the furore surrounding a Supreme Court directive ordering for the eviction of tribals and forest-dwelling people across 16 states, after the Union government failed to defend the Forest Rights Act, a law made to protect the rights of these people. Since then we have brought out 70 episodes with wide ranging discussions on many important topics such as voter deletions, state of healthcare, education, sexual harassment at workplace, Kashmir and ongoing CAA-NRC-NPR. Guests in these episodes ranged from leading journalists to political party spokespeople to social justice activists and technology experts. Across these 70 episodes, we have tracked India’s attempts to revamp its education system even as it continues the world’s longest internet shutdown in Kashmir. With over 50,000 listeners, this podcast in its second year will continue to bring meaningful stories. Starting next month, this podcast will also feature mini-series which will bring to you more in-depth reported stories on varied issues from across India. These stories will be brought to you by independent journalists with a stellar record. Thank you, dear listeners, for your overwhelming response to this show and for encouraging Suno India’s small but mighty team. As a journalist, I believe our job lies in recording the ups and downs of this beautiful nation. We believe this show along with our other shows give you a glimpse into how the nation’s policies and politics are evolving. All these shows are rooted in Suno India’s ethos that stories that matter need to be told and they need to be heard whichever side of the political spectrum you are in. In an increasingly polarized world where hate is being given priority over social justice, development and tackling real-world problems, I hope you our listeners, will take stock of the world around you & reject hate. Let us ask ourselves what is more important- the constant battle over which god came first or which emperor destroyed what first or is it important that we ask why our leaders are consistently failing our poor our children and the women of this country? Do we spend time raging over mythology or do we live in the present and hold our public servants accountable for their constant dereliction of duty. We also hope you will start holding most of the mainstream media more accountable for their actions; for their failure to uphold journalistic principles and for becoming purveyors of hate. Most importantly, it is your our listeners who can help platforms like us remain independent and enable us to bring you stories without relying on those who set agendas. If you have been with us through this year or have only discovered us, do consider supporting our work by contributing generously.

One Year of The Suno India Show – An appeal to reject hate

बिहार की राजधानी पटना में एनपीआर, एनआरसी और सीएए के खिलाफ़ आगामी गुरुवार 27 फ़रवरी को एक महारैली का आयोजन हो रहा है. माना जा रहा है कि एनपीआर, एनआरसी और सीएए के खिलाफ़ यह बिहार में होने वाला अब तक का सबसे बड़ा आयोजन होगा. इस महारैली के बारे में लोगों को बताने और इसके मुद्दों के प्रति जन गोलबंदी के लिए अभी बिहार में एक जन-गण-मन यात्रा चल रही है. इसकी शुरुआत बीते महीने महात्मा गाँधी के शहादत दिवस के दिन 30 जनवरी को चंपारण के बापू-धाम से हुई. यह साक्षात्कार मनीष शांडिल्य के द्वारा दर्ज किया गया है|

Ground report from Bihar - Anti CAA protests rage across the state - Bihar becomes first NDA state to pass resolution against NRC

President of The United States of America, Donald Trump, is scheduled to visit India on 25th and 26th of February. As part of his visit, expectations are high that significant trade deals would be signed between both the countries. According to numerous reports, in order to revive the US economy, the US president is set to rethink about GSP policy which was scrapped in 2019 and pressuring Indian government to import agriculture goods worth Rs 42000 crore to India from the US.  Fearing the impact such a deal would have on the livelihood of the farmers, the farmer organisations staged a nationwide protest on 17th February and called this deal the biggest anti-farmer decision ever. The Suno India Show reached out to Abhimanyu Kohar, National Coordinator and Spokesperson of Rashtriya Kisan Mahasangh to know more about the India - US trade agreement and the recently held protest march by farmers in India.

Farmers coalition unhappy with Trump’s India visit, call India-US trade deal anti-farmer

In November 2019, Business Standard’s assistant editor Somesh Jha broke an important story- that India’s consumer spending had hit a 40 year low. The report quoted the National Statistical Commission’s official survey data which reported a fall in consumer spending in 2017-18. Fast forward to February 2020 & it has come to fore that the Indian government would not be making this very important survey report public. In this episode, Suno India editor Padma Priya speaks with Somesh Jha to know more about the survey report and why the government has decided against releasing the report and what this means for the credibility for India’s statistical body.

NSO’s report showing decline in rural spending scrapped

On January 30th, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a global health emergency over a new coronavirus that has killed more than 1,300 people following an outbreak in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. Nearly 60,000 cases have been reported across mainland China, most of them in China's Hubei province.  In India, 3 cases of coronavirus have been reported and over 300 students who were evacuated from Wuhan early this month remain quarantined. The novel coronavirus, identified by Chinese authorities on January 7 and since named COVID-19, is a new strain that had not been previously identified in humans. Little is known about it, although human-to-human transmission has been confirmed. According to the WHO, signs of infection include fever, cough, shortness of breath and breathing difficulties. In more severe cases, it can lead to pneumonia, kidney failure and even death. To know more about coronavirus & what the world is bracing for a fight against, Padma Priya, editor, Suno India reached out to Dr G Arun Kumar, Director, Manipal Institute of Virology.

How prepared is India to tackle a potential novel coronavirus outbreak?

It has been around two months since the country-wide protests against NPR, NRC and CAA began. Lawyers, activists and data privacy experts have raised concerns about how data collection exercises such as NPR can be potentially used for processes such as disenfranchisement. Prof Faizan Mustafa talks to Ayesha Minaz, guest host, The Suno India Show about the constitutional values that CAA violates, the possibility of misuse of NRC and NPR. Prof Faizan Mustafa is a senior constitutional law teacher and currently the vice-chancellor of NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad.

Legal ramifications of NPR, NRC and CAA

Kashmir suffers from economic losses of more than Rs.17,000 crores, says the Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry report, following the Jammu and Kashmir reorientation and the internet shutdown. They say that tourism, handicrafts and horticultural trade have been majorly impacted.  According to the Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns in 2019 report, India has lost $1.3 million in 2019 due to Internet Shutdowns.  In this episode of The Suno India Show, we speak to the president of Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry Mr. Sheikh Ashiq to understand the extent of impact they had observed in their report.

Economic losses of more than 17000 crores reported in Kashmir

The Suno India Show is a show which looks at the big news of the week.

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