Truth Vs Hype

On Truth vs Hype this week, we report from Delhi's slums and resettlement colonies, which hold the key to power, and yet are neglected by political parties until election time. We trace a history of unkept promises, which ensures that these areas remain uncertain of their rights and their legal status, perfect for political exploitation.

As the Gujarat government battles the charges of subjecting a young woman and an IAS officer Pradeep Sharma to intense surveillance in 2009, the BJP says they were honouring the wishes of her father, who wanted protection for the woman, from Sharma, who has since been suspended on multiple charges of corruption. Now for the first time, on NDTV, Pradeep Sharma breaks his silence revealing the inside story of the sequence of events which led to the Minister of State for Home Amit Shah, at the behest of a "Saheb", keeping watch on two citizens.

As election day approaches, opinion polls suggest that the Aam Aadmi Party will be a force to reckon with in Delhi. This week, an on the ground, in depth report on the exciting and bewildering AAP phenomenon: are they rewriting the rules of elections, or are they already becoming trapped in the compromises of conventional politics? Will they simply be a spoiler, or emerge as serious contenders in the battle for Delhi?

Since May this year, the world's attention is fixed on South Africa, where the giant of its anti-apartheid struggle, Nelson Mandela, battles for his life. Information on his health has been extremely sketchy. But through the lens of Nobel prize winner Desmond Tutu, his fellow traveller in the battle against apartheid, and who was in India this week, we are offered a remarkable insight into the Mandela story, which is as much the story of these two individuals, who sometimes in conflict, sometimes in partnership played a key role in one of the most fascinating political journeys of our time.

Narendra Modi's plans to construct a massive statue of Sardar Patel in Gujarat is the latest attempt by the BJP to appropriate the mantle of one of the giants of the independence movement. This has triggered considerable panic in the Congress, which is making a late attempt to reclaim the Patel legacy. With ground reports from Bharuch, Ahmedabad and New Delhi, we report on how India's Iron man was far too complex a figure to allow for easy appropriation either by Hindutvavaadis or by the Congress of today.

The CBI's latest FIR in the coal allotment scam against a whistleblowing former Coal Secretary and a highly regarded industrialist has raised questions about the quality of their evidence. The CBI insists it's a conspiracy, the PMO claims it was above board. This week, we sift through the facts to find a more nuanced reality: the PMO's defence of the Hindalco is full of anomalies, but in themselves that may not amount to corruption. But even if the CBI is on a weak wicket on Hindalco, it doesn't mean that in other cases, wrongful allotments didn't take place at all, and money didn't change hands. So the more germane question to ask is why has the CBI not been able to unearth the higher levels of political conspiracy underlying coal allotments?

The conviction of Lalu Prasad in the fodder scam is being seen as a watershed moment in the politics of Bihar. But the focus on the political aftermath has deflected attention from the specific charges against Lalu. This week, from Ranchi, Patna and New Delhi we retrace the trail of corruption, bringing onto the camera key investigators, activists, accused and politicians, some for the first time. Was Lalu - as the CBI claims - the focal point of a sprawling nexus of corruption, where politicians, officials and contractors colluded to siphon off crores from an impoverished state, or as Lalu claims, was he simply unaware of the systematic loot taking place under his nose?

On the cusp of talks between the heads of India and Pakistan, three terrorists managed to slip inside India's borders in Jammu. Eight hours of mayhem and killings ensued, as they attacked multiple targets. Their goal appears to be to strain already tense diplomatic equations between both countries, but along the way they also exposed multiple flaws in a security establishment unprepared for what appears to be a new season of violence.

The cycle of violence and retaliation in Muzaffarnagar has slowed down for now. This week, we travel through a calm but tense countryside to understand what are the forces which divided two communities that have no history of animosity: how much of it is based on genuine grievance, and how much on divisive politics?

The simmering communal tension in Uttar Pradesh came to a boil in Muzaffarnagar, where lives have been lost, homes burnt to the ground, people turned into refugees. This week, in a special one hour edition of Truth vs Hype we trace how a combination of dangerous political opportunism and criminal negligence by the state government converted an isolated instance of violence into a major riot.

Yasin Bhatkal, accused of being part of the Indian Mujahideen, is now in custody, but does the group face an uncertain future, or does it still hold lethal potential?

The Food Security Bill's passage in Parliament set off seismic levels of panic in the stock markets. The government, on the other hand, believes it's a political gamechanger. This week, we take a hard impartial look at whether either side is justified in the claims being made about the risks and benefits of the Food Bill. And will it, as the government claims, become a tool to end hunger? Or will it foster mega corruption and sink an already fragile economy?

On Independence Day, in a village in Bihar, a group of Dalits were brutally attacked by their upper caste neighbours. One Dalit was killed and more than 30 others injured. The provocation: the Dalits built a temple of their icon Sant Ravidas at the entrance of the village. The upper castes wanted to hoist the national flag exactly at the same spot, but the Dalits refused, saying it is their land. It is an incident that came as shock to the rest of Bihar, which thought it had moved past its horrific legacy of caste atrocities. But while this episode may not mark a return to that terrible past, it brings out how Bihar's experiments with progressive politics have created new kinds of caste tensions, that simmer beneath the surface and occasionally, like on 15th August, come to the boil.

Robert Vadra is back in the headlines after a report by Haryana IAS officer, Ashok Khemka, found multiple violations in land deals by Sonia Gandhi's son in law. Those in defence of Mr Vadra claim there was nothing illegal about these deals. But a closer look at these transactions suggest that they walk a fine line between illegality and outright cronyism, where property traders, Congress politicians, state governments and business houses do extraordinary favours to Vadra to ensure that he becomes a multi-millionaire without spending a penny.

The battle for Telangana has become a battle for Hyderabad. Those demanding a separate state say they want to end the dominance of the contractor - politicians from the rest of Andhra Pradesh who have made crores from India's cyber city, and control the politics of the state.But given the high stakes involved, there is concern that leaders of the new Telangana are less worried about social justice to a deprived region, and more with getting their share of boomtown Hyderabad.

After playing cat-and-mouse with Mulayam Singh Yadav for six years, the UPA looks all set to close the CBI's investigation into potential corruption by the Samajwadi Party chief and his family. This week, from Lucknow to the Yadav heartland of Etawah, we investigate how the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is turning its back on its own findings - that the first family of Uttar Pradesh politics may have amassed crores of assets, way beyond their earnings.

As soon as the Supreme Court lifted the ban on Mumbai's dance bars, politicians in Maharashtra protested, saying that the bars should remain shut because they are a source of moral corruption and pose a law and order menace. But this maybe outright hyprocrisy given that politicians and police officials patronised dance bars or directly owned them. In fact, as we discover this week, the real reason why the bars were shut down was may be because of a multi-crore payoff that went wrong.

Earlier this month, a young Dalit boy Ilavarasan, was found dead on the railway tracks. Initially, his family suspected he was murdered for daring to marry a girl of the higher, Vanniyar caste. The police now claim to have enough evidence to suggest that he committed suicide. But this makes his death no less a tragedy, nor does it exempt those who have used the Ilavarasan story for political gains, even if it came at the cost of suicides, riots, and the sharpening of caste tensions.

Gopinath Munde's public declaration that he had spent Rs. 8 crores during his 2009 election campaign has sparked a controversy. Some politicians tried to spin this as an act of courage, of someone brave enough to expose the worst kept secret of Indian elections - that virtually every MLA and MP spends more than their limits. But its too soon to congratulate Munde and his ilk, because as we discover, every single political party has fought tooth and nail to block any attempts to disclose where they get their money from and how they spend it.

The CBI's 1500 page chargesheet in the Ishrat Jahan encounter only confirms what several investigators had already found: that it was not the case of a group of LeT, on their way to a terror strike. Instead 4 people, already in custody were moved into place wearing blindfolds and executed. But the chargesheet raises as many questions as it answers of the forces at play behind the encounter, which many say holds the key to unraveling the motive behind the killings.