This is a podcast by the News Minute and you are listening to South Central. Hi, Dhanya. I've come armed with a lot of Gen Z language and this for people who can't watch and this and what this. Yes, I have actually been using Gen Z language quite a bit. When I go to schools and colleges, they don't listen, right? I mean, why should they listen to me? So I tell them, don't be sus about everyone. I've been doing this for quite a while. Therefore, this is not new for me. Infiltration. Yeah. And like you are very mid. You don't have riz, Pooja. Oh, my God. Yeah. Okay. So you no longer get this from me. And in this episode, I'm also going to read out a few letters from our listeners. Do write to us at southcentral at thenewsminute.com. I will be reading letters once a month. Okay. So before we go to the headlines, two things. One, I hope you have read the cracker of a story by our colleague Avdesh in News Laundry, where he tracked that truck with stones, which was parked near the protest site. The Solicitor General and the additional Solicitor General had told the court that this truck was just there. But Avdesh has tracked down the truck was actually in Delhi Police's custody. The Delhi Police, of course, has given a fact check. It's become their job now. Fact check, no pettit guns. Hospital reports come still. Fact check, no pettit guns. So please do read that story. You all have been sharing a lot of our work and News Laundry's work. We are thankful for that. And as a token of our appreciation, we are sending out some stickers to all our subscribers with just the delivery charges. So you have to just pay the delivery charge. These are stickers that you can put on your car, your scooter, your laptop, or you could even pass this to your friends and family to spread the word about independent media. Like I said last week, this protest and how the mainstream media covered it has clearly showed us the necessity of independent media in this country. And if you are not a subscriber yet, then we are giving a 20% off on subscriptions for both News Laundry and the News Minute together. So avail the subscription and get your stickers. I think it's a great week to be proud of being supporters of independent media so you can make that more public. Tell everyone how you are keeping us going by your contributions, by your subscription, etc. We'll start with the headlines for the week. Looking at Kerala first, Kerala police booked DG Mohandas over his derogatory comments against CJP protesters. In two different videos, he said the protesters at Janthar Mantar would have been shot and killed if he was in control He also said the women who were part of the protest liked to be raped and would not even have complained if it had happened I just want to say one thing There are only two times in my life when the RSS when an RSS spokesperson has directly reached out and sent a reaction. The first one was a story during COVID, or after COVID rather. The second was this time. In the night, the RSS spokesperson sent a press release saying that T.G. Mohandas has nothing to do with us, as in he does not have any leadership role in the RSS, but he was very much the intellectual cell head of the BJP. Yeah, I mean, that speaks for itself. Yeah, but also we've said this time and again, how RSS keeps it ambiguous, right? You're a member, you're not a member, we don't have membership. So anytime you don't like something you can say, we have nothing to do with it. And this T.G. Mohandas has a big following in Kerala. I know a lot of people in their 50s, 60s, etc. who religiously listen to him. What kind of poison are you injecting in people's mind? Personality, cult, apathy, candidate selection, CPIM's unsparing audit of Kerala route By personalising the campaign and centring it around Comrade Pindaravijan We unwittingly gave an opportunity to the UDF to conduct a targeted campaign against him says a review report by the CPIM Central Committee Let's move on to Karnataka Suspense continues over Karnataka cabinet expansion as Congress delays final decision Suspense over the expansion of the Karnataka cabinet continued with the Congress high command, once again deferring a final decision on the list of legislators to be included. It's not interesting otherwise. But the only thing I'm using is, poor DK Shiv Kumar must be dreading going to Delhi now. No, first Rahul Gandhi took him to detention centre because they all got detained together. And now Rahul Gandhi is in parliament. You saw DK Shiv Kumar tweeted watching Rahul Gandhi. So he must be thinking, I'm safer here. If I go near parliament, I'll get arrested again. So that's that. CWRC asked Karnataka to release 3500 cusacks of Kaveri water to Tamil Nadu state to challenge. The CWRC has directed Karnataka to ensure the flow of 3500 cusacks, like I said, of Kaveri water for 15 days starting this Wednesday, prompting the state to prepare an appeal before the CWMA amid strong opposition from the BJP. There are protests already in Mandya, Mysore, etc. Farmers groups, political parties, etc. protesting saying this water cannot be released. In that row, the Karnataka Chief Minister DK Shukumar has invited Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Vijay to come and inspect how bad the water situation is in the Kaveri dams by helicopter. Vijay is coming to Bangalore, I think, Bengaluru on August 3rd, if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. Another headline from Bengaluru, restaurants warn of Swiggy Zomato boycott over discounts and commission. Restaurants associations allege that high commissions, deep discounts and multiple deductions by food delivery platforms are hurting restaurant profits. They have demanded a fairer and more transparent partnership model. Let look at Tamil Nadu next DVAC books former DMK Minister Sendhil Balaji conducts searches at 41 locations across Tamil Nadu The searches were conducted after a corruption case was registered against Sendhil Palaji the former managing director and officials of Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation that is TASMAC. The second case against him after the TVK came to power. EVMs from Kolottur to undergo technical checks following MK Stalin's application. The Election Commission will verify EVMs from 14 polling stations in Kolhattur after an application by DMK chief MK Stalin who lost the constituency in the 2020 successively election. So there are lots of election petitions, but this one is about the technical faults in the EVM, which is why it's been taken up. Moving on to Andhra, 16,000 schools in Andhra run with single teacher. This is according to data by the Union Ministry of Education. This was given in Rajya Sabha on Wednesday in response to a question raised by MP Randeep Singh Sutjewala on teacher vacancies and single teacher schools across the country. Eviction looms over 258 shop owners at Vijayawada's Lenin Centre. Traders fear loss of livelihood and customer base as Vijayawada Municipal Corporation moves to clear canal bund encroachments in compliance with an Andhra Pradesh High Court order. Moving on to Telangana, the High Court orders removal of Hydra Chief for repeat violations of court order and not giving apology. The court has had severely reprimanded the Hydra boss, warning that it could direct the army to take him into custody, to place him in the army barracks for repeatedly violating court orders. But Rev. Reddy has said that it's a prerogative of the state government to actually appoint bureaucrats in whatever positions. So they are going to appeal against this. Also, good time to watch and read some of the work done by Ranjan Aminakshi, your colleague, who's been following what Hydra has been doing from its inception. Couple of national headlines before we wrap up. Anti-paper leak bill likely to be introduced in Rajya Sabha. It's already been passed in the Lok Sabha. Yeah. Anti-paper leak bill likely to be introduced in Rajya Sabha. This is going to come up. This is some remedy that the Modi government is trying after the CJP protest. in the parliament itself. No shots were fired at students, claims Union Minister Jitendra Singh. This in spite of so many people getting injured by parallel guns. But look at the wordplay. He says no shots fired. That could mean gunshots. While there's only one story by the Hindu which now says that in one of the medical records, it says gunshot. He says no shots fired at students. Yeah. They can get away by saying that whatever shots were fired were other people. Yeah. Assam floods death count rises to 75. Over 3 lakh people still affected. A total of 622 villages have been impacted by severe flooding. Multiple agencies, including the Army, Air Force, NDRF and SDRF, along with fire and emergency services, civil volunteers, continue to carry out relief and rescue operations. The situation is pretty bad in Assam, but I'm sure the chief minister has better things to do like vilifying protesters of CJP Ouch Well thank you for that puja okay so we moved to the first topic of the day as in the only topic of the day but we look at a lot of things and i i know that we normally discuss um news events happening in south india but what's happened in delhi in the last week the repercussions of that are still being felt across india because cases are being filed against students despite the government's assurance that the cases will be be withdrawn. We're also seeing the Delhi police write to Meta and other social media platforms asking for name, address, etc. of people who have social media accounts and who have apparently, allegedly heard the sentiments of Narendra Modi ji and the rest of the cabinet. Therefore, to talk about this and more, we are joined by the editor of The Bias, Seema Chishti. Seema, thank you very much for joining us. Thank you. And representing the Gen Z generation and someone who's done really astounding work during these whole protests is Vedanta Agarwal of Peak TV. Vedanta, thank you very much. Thank you for having me. Yeah. So before we go to the discussion, I just want to point out Vedanta's colleague Priyanshi was on Hafta last week, which is the News Laundries podcast. And as Abhinandan said, all the three organizations here, The Wire, Peak TV and us, we are all dependent on our viewers and our listeners or readers subscribing or donating. So do that. I think you also have a Razorpay page, which is there on your Instagram account, right, Vedanta? Yes, we do. Yeah. And Vyad also has done stellar work, especially on the pellet guns. But Seema, despite everything, the police is continuing to deny. In fact, in the parliament yesterday, the minister said no gunshots on students. So I think that is so much this government's default mode. It is such a rehearsed playbook that they keep trying till the end to put on record that nothing's happened. They hope that these are all just media bubbles, social media, small things that will go away and nothing is on record. I think they'll keep trying, trying, trying till it becomes impossible to defend. And then there'll be a small affidavit. There'll be something on page three that admits it. But we must also take note on the other side, there's a desire to flex on this. So the CRPF chief goes out and says that, do all this fearlessly, he's quoted as saying, I want to know what fearlessly means for an armed combat force, which taxpayers pay for, which is mandated constitutionally to protect its citizens. It's not personal, you know, security for people in power at that time. It is meant to protect the Indian constitution and the Indian people. So I think there's a bit of the twin thing happening. But it's clear that the government is very scared and doesn't know how to play this thing about being brutal on protesters. So far, it's been a thing. There's a lot of demonstrative brutality. So even on Noida workers, even on any kind... On the young environmentalists who were like 17, 18, at India Gate, if you remember, in winter in Delhi, who had come, they've swooped on them within seconds. And, you know, they made it a point
