Truth Vs Hype

As Tamil Nadu emerges from the shock and mourning over the loss of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa, questions are now being asked as to who really controls the reins of power in the state. O Panneerselvam may have been made chief minister, but is he indeed the sole authority? The active presence of Sasikala Natarajan, Jayalalithaa's aide, and her family members during the last rites, have raised concerns about multiple power centres - concerns borne out by an NDTV investigation this week, which found serious questions on the transfer of power in Tamil Nadu.

The stated purpose, at first, for scrapping old 500 and 1,000-rupee notes was to get rid of black money. Now the government says its aim is also for a cashless India, and it's for this new mission that people must endure the hardship of demonetisation. This week, we scrutinise the government's new claim - how realistic is it for an economy like India to go cashless?

Today marked eight years since the 26/11 attacks - one of the worst terrorist strikes in recent memory. At first, it seemed Pakistan might act against the attackers, making arrests and beginning a trial. But the 26/11 case has unravelled, its masterminds at large. Pakistan blames India for not supplying evidence. But we scour official documents and interview key prosecutors, officials and experts from across the border to contest Pakistan's claim. Instead, we find how fear, apathy and outright sabotage may have stalled justice for the victims of the 26/11 attacks.

India is in turmoil over demonetisation - long queues, the economy under stress, even deaths of those stranded without cash. The government says it's a sacrifice to eliminate black money. This week we investigate that core claim - will cancelling high value notes end the scourge of black money, or has the government ignored evidence from its own experts?

Moments after his shock win, Donald Trump struck a reconciliatory note saying he will heal the wounds of a divided country. This week, in a special report from New York we examine whether his reinvention is truth or hype, and if America can recover from the impact of a corrosive election.

At first it seemed like a case of police victory: 8 men, members of the banned outfit SIMI break out of a heavily guarded jail in Bhopal. But then, barely a few hours later, they are killed in an encounter. But a trove of material has blown holes in the official version of the jailbreak and the encounter. With exclusive interviews, eyewitness accounts and police records, we have pieced together a detailed account of one of the most controversial episode of recent times.

The shock removal of Tata Group Chairman Cyrus Mistry has set off a no-holds barred skirmish within one of India's most respected corporates. As we go on air, this is still a breaking story; every moment brings a new twist and a new allegation. This week on Truth vs Hype, key insiders on both sides open up as we trace the origins, the trigger, and the possible endgame of the year's most unexpected corporate wars.

This week we travel to America for a ringside view of one of the most controversial, self-destructive political campaigns the world has seen. We go head to head with Donald Trump himself, we interview key Republican party officials both for and against him, and we travel to the ground, to witness an anarchic yet aggressive election campaign, one that is dividing America.

In the second of our two-part series on the funding and impact in India of 'Salafism' or 'Wahhabism' - a puritanical strand of Islam widely practised in Saudi Arabia, but also practised increasingly in other parts of the world - we examine how the arrests made by the National Investigation Agency in ISIS-connected cases link to Salafism.

All over the world, governments are noting with concern the rise of a puritanical Saudi-style Islam, known interchangeably as 'Wahhabism' or 'Salafism'. But in India, while such statements are routinely made about 'Saudi-funded madrassas', they are not backed up with facts. Over the course of a month, we set out to investigate how 'Salafism' in India has grown, what are its known (and unknown) sources of funds, and what dangers it poses to a secular, diverse society. Watch the first part of our two-part investigation this week.

Bihar's draconian new prohibition laws - in which an entire village, or family can me made liable - has sent shockwaves across the State. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar says these ultra-tough measures are the only way to ensure that prohibition will work. This week on Truth vs Hype, we test these claims on the ground: will the laws make prohibition a success and bring social benefits, or will it trigger criminality and corruption, without the promised gains?

India's new child labour law is meant to strengthen laws against exploitation of children. But there are worries that it legalises child labour by allowing children to work alongside their families. We travel to the industrial belt along the Delhi-Haryana border to see first-hand the impact of the new bill on the ground - from cramped workshops inside homes, to illegal, informal industrial units that employ 8-year-olds. Our investigation seeks to ask: has parliament made India's children safer or more vulnerable?

Towards the end of June, seven men from Hyderabad were arrested on charges that they were part of an ISIS plot to stage attacks in India. Statements of five of these seven men, accessed exclusively by NDTV, throw up new and disturbing aspects of the reach of the terror group Islamic State in India - from how it recruits, how it ensures an oath of allegiance and how it supplies weapons. Families of these men have rebutted the NIA's charges, but investigators claim they have enough evidence to back these statements. Claims will now be tested in court. We show this with a rider: statements made in police custody do not have value as evidence.

The video of Dalit men flogged by cattle vigilantes in Gujarat has turned attention once again on the violent, and divisive methods used by gau rakshaks or self-styled cow vigilantes across the country. They claim to be acting as defenders of the holy cow. On Truth vs Hype this week, we expose how that rhetoric is often a mask for extortion, bribe-taking and using vigilantism to support a thriving network of cattle shelters. We go undercover with a cattle truck, that is attacked by gau-rakshaks to find how their thuggery has the tacit support of the police.

This week Truth vs Hype travels to Doha, Qatar for an exclusive interview with one of the most wanted men in the world - Khaled Mashal, the head of Hamas. Hamas is one of the most important political authorities in the Gaza strip but also designated as a terror outfit by the US, EU and Israel. The atrocities of ISIS may have eclipsed Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but that is key to Middle East peace so it's important to hear the Hamas leader on whether his hardline group will be enablers or a stumbling block to peace.

India's garment industry is one of the biggest in the world, employing millions, especially women. They are the invisible hands behind some of the biggest global clothing brands, and India sees garments as a key driver of growth. But there is a darker side to this. New reports suggest women garment workers have to endure a pervasive culture of sexual propositioning, abuse, even rape. We spoke to women workers in the major garment hubs of Gurgaon and Bangalore to understand how widespread is the taint of sexual harassment. And whether the new tougher laws against sexual harassment has filtered into their workplaces. For their answers, and the responses to our investigation from export houses, global brands, and the government, tune into Truth vs Hype.

As prices of food staples continue to rise, particularly those of dal and tomatoes, the government is, as always, quick to blame poor weather for the crisis. On Truth vs Hype, we find the reality is much more complex. The government's own data shows a glut, not a shortage of tomatoes, in the market. So why are prices rising? As for dal, is the shortage because of drought, or a drought of policy decisions? The country's food minister also joins us to take tough questions on the many of the myths surrounding high prices.

With Tamil Nadu recently joining the string of states imposing a partial or full ban on alcohol, we interrogate the arguments made in favour of Prohibition: does it reduce domestic violence? Make cities safer for women? Remove social ills? Or is the reality more nuanced than the political slogans?

Of all the dramatic outcomes from this week's election results, the most startling was the return of Jayalalithaa in Tamil Nadu. We sift through the data and travel to the ground to decode the multiple factors that led to the Amma's comeback, and what it means to Tamil Nadu politics.

The cold-blooded killing of a teenager in Bihar's town of Gaya by the son of a politician made national headlines, harking back to the state's lawless past. As BJP and Nitish Kumar clash on whether Bihar is entering Jungle Raj 2.0, we use the Aditya Sachdeva murder as a starting point to look deeper at the nature of the problem. Is Bihar in midst of a crime wave, or is this more the worrying rise of political dadagiri which the new government is unable to contain?