Truth Vs Hype

With just a few days left for the Bihar campaign to end, it remains as enduring a riddle as it was when it had begun. Political parties on both sides are supremely confident of victory. But public opinion - always anecdotal - is clearly divided. This week, inside the constantly shifting tactics and counter-tactics of this high stakes, fiercely contested political battle, on one hand, the Prime Minister has launched a massive but late surge to almost single handedly tilt it in the BJP's favour. And on the other, his former strategists, now crossed sides into the Nitish Kumar camp, are determined to outwit the Modi juggernaut.

This week, a special edition of Truth vs Hype from inside Hungary, a country which more than any other, embodies the fault lines within Europe on how to tackle the crisis of refugees fleeing the Syrian war. Is Hungary's hardline rhetoric on refugees justified or alarmist ? Will its extreme position now set the tone for the rest of Europe ? And as winter falls, and Europe's borders close, will it once again disrupt the tenuous calm along the border?

It has been almost two weeks since the killing of Mohammad Akhlaq of Dadri village, murdered on a rumour that he killed a calf and ate beef. Several of the BJP's top leadership have called for restraint. But the climate remains charged; violent vigilantism in the name of the cow is spreading. Are the BJP's calls for restraint sufficient to rein in violence? Or is the party's obsession with cow protection serving as a proxy endorsement of groups that use the cow card to stir sectarian tensions?

The entire attention of the world media on the refugee crisis has been concentrated on those who arrive at the doorsteps of Europe. Instead, we have chosen to take the hard road. To travel to the routes of the Syrian refugee crisis. Starting with the Turkey-Syria border where there are still millions who wait and face complex challenges that remain invisible.

Marathwada, in Maharashtra is not unfamiliar to water scarcity, but is now confronting possibly its worst ever drought. Yet lush fields of water guzzling sugarcane are a symptom of a deeper, man-made dimension to the crisis. We report on how there is a reluctance to correct the mistakes of the past - of the unfair promoting one crop over the others, of undoing the political economy that makes such inequalities possible. In many ways what we are witnessing in Marathwada, is symptomatic of tough choices that confront Indian agriculture, and the consequences of failure to remedy.

This week, we cut through the fog of claims surrounding the ban on sale of meat during the Jain sacred period in Mumbai: Is the ban a BJP creation, as everyone first assumed, or does it stretch back decades across governments? If so, why did no one hear about it? Was it simply liberal bias as the BJP claimed, or was it also the confusing way the ban was enforced? Does that let the BJP off the hook, are they too guilty of using dietary parochialism, to create divisions?

Even after 7 days of the murder of the respected scholar Professor MM Kalburgi, we are nowhere closer to knowing why he was killed, or by whom. This week on Truth vs Hype we examine some of the commonly held theories : Was he killed because of his questioning of orthodoxies in his own community of Lingayats? Or because he rubbed Hindutva -waadis the wrong way? Or was it a property dispute within his family? Or like the recent murders of other intellectual dissenters, is there a fear that his murder too, will remain inconclusive?

Three years later, the Delhi gang-rape remains the defining event for how rape is perceived in India - of women attacked by strangers on a bus or in an abandoned mill. But a new study of rape in Mumbai and new national data on rape suggest a very different reality. Close to 85-90 per cent of all recorded rapes in India are by acquaintances - friends, neighbours or family. The greater danger is not on the streets, but inside the Indian home. These are not new findings. They reinforce what has been in the public domain for long, but yet remains a collective blind spot in the fight against sexual violence.

In his Red Fort speech, PM Modi was combative in his defence of the government's black money bill, meant to bring back illicit flows abroad. But the law has triggered anxieties in corporate India who fear a witch hunt. Are the fears against the bill justified, or exaggerated? Will black money come in, or are millionaires flowing out? And is the government ignoring the roots of black money under its nose?

Yakub Memon, convicted for his role in plotting in the bomb blasts that tore through Mumbai 22 years ago, has been executed. Right until the last moment, all the questions over his guilt that had appeared settled reignited into debate: was he mastermind of the blasts or a bystander? Was he a source of valuable information to India or was there no agreement with the CBI? With his death, none of those questions may be answered, but they continue to haunt.

Yakub Memon was finally executed today for his role in plotting the 1993 bomb blasts but right until the last moment, questions remained over why his claims of having helped the CBI was never made in court. In an exclusive interview , Niteen Pradhan who helped the TADA court during the trial lays the blame on Yakub's lawyers saying they failed to make a strong case on his behalf.

Skill India is one of the government's most ambitious plans, with a target to skill 40 crore workers in seven years. This week, Truth vs Hype examines the questions it raises: Do we have the capacity to skill so many workers while maintaining quality? And are industries willing to pay premium for skill? And there are also deeper questions: whether simply possessing a skill is enough given the dramatic changes unfolding in India's workforce, where a new generation of workers are coming to new uncertainties?

Truth vs Hype this week looks at whether this government, like previous ones, has fallen prey to the malaise of interfering with educational and research institutions. We investigate the reasons behind the abrupt resignation of the head of NCERT, the body that frames school textbooks. What explains the continuing acrimony in India's premier history research institute? And what is Baba Ramdev doing at IIT Delhi?

Through 2007, as a series of blasts rocked Indian cities, investigators charged a core group of Sangh Parivar activists for the attacks. But now, there are worries that the cases are under threat of falling apart. First, Special Prosecutor in the Malegaon blast, Rohini Salian, says she was asked to go soft by officials of the National Investigation Agency after a new government came to power. Now, 'Truth vs Hype' finds that the Ajmer blast case, where again the accused are affiliated to the Sangh may be at the risk of collapse with key witnesses turning hostile.

Truth vs Hype comes at the end of a week when the BJP government is grappling with its first major political crisis, triggered by allegations that its senior leaders did special favours for Lalit Modi, the former IPL boss who being investigated for a raft of charges in India. We take a hard look at the defence being offered by the ruling regime: the support they offered was justified, that Mr Modi is technically not a fugitive from law, and that there was no quid pro quo. And also does the Congress' high ground undermined by their own actions, or lack of them, in bringing Lalit Modi to justice.

As the Modi government attempts to jump start the economy, we focus on one area of the financial system that could threaten to slow down economic revival, one that gets far less scrutiny than it should: corporate debt. A mountain of cash stuck in projects half complete or yet to get off the ground, weighing down the banking system. Will the urgency to get stalled projects back on track lead to the mistakes of the past being repeated, with little or no interest in establishing how crores of public money were lent so recklessly, and where it has all gone?

As the Modi government turns a year old, we focus on one of its most ambitious projects: Make in India, which promises to turn India into a global manufacturing hub. But is Make in India a recycling of the UPA's manufacturing scheme? And will it be able to create the millions of jobs it promises?

Jayalalithaa is back as chief minister after the Karnataka High Court acquitted her in a case of unaccounted wealth. But there are serious questions that have surfaced over the logic of the judgement - not just mathematical errors but as an exclusive NDTV investigation has found, several graver lapses. These lapses have in turn only intensified the allegations of politics at play, clouding over the investigation from the very start.

The anniversary of the Modi Sarkar will be marked by the inevitable highlighting of its achievements, especially its marquee schemes Jan Dhan - opening bank accounts for the poor; and Swacch Bharat -building crores of toilets. Both these schemes were modeled closely on UPA-era programmes which fell short because they prioritised the meeting of targets over actual delivery. This week, we take a hard look at whether the NDA's ambitious planners have learnt from past errors, or will they repeat the UPA's mistakes at an even larger scale?

This week, Truth vs Hype travels to Scotland after UK's surprise election results saw a separatist party, the Scottish National Party, claim a strong voice for the first time in Parliament, dampening David Cameron's victory celebrations. NDTV speaks to political pundits, SNP leaders and the people of Edinburgh to find out if the reasons for Scottish resentment are really justified and if, as many believe, the future of a United Kingdom is at threat.