Truth Vs Hype

The government's ambitious plan to build 11 crore toilets in 5 years as means of ending open defecation is a worthy idea. But the 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan' is closely modelled on earlier schemes, which have been largely focused on constructing toilets, not in enabling a shift of mindsets. As a result, millions of toilets lie unused, many falling into disrepair. Will the new regime learn from the mistakes of the past? Or could crores of rupees literally be flushed down the drain?

Maharashtra's four-way contest has proven to be one of the most complex elections. Former allies are now locked in grudge contests, but also a high level of 'imported' candidates is only adding to the confusing, bitter nature of these elections.

The conviction of J Jayalalithaa in a case of unexplained wealth has triggered protests by the AIADMK, who insist their leader is innocent. They say that as in past cases where she has been convicted of corruption, this time, too, she will get an acquittal. But the 1,000-page court order presents strong evidence to show how thousands of acres of land bought during Jayalalithaa's first tenure as chief minister trace directly back to her, and how her lawyers could not explain the sources of funds used to buy the land. Which begs the question: how will Jayalalithaa's legal team be able to get her legal relief, and will this be a major setback to her political career?

A special court in Mumbai is all set to pronounce judgement in the Mumbai 7/11 train bombings, in which almost 200 were killed. The fate of 13 men arrested by the Maharashtra Anti-Terror Squad hangs in the balance, men whom the police say planned and carried out the attacks. But during the past 8 years of the 7/11 trial, serious questions have arisen about the nature of evidence - raising doubts over whether justice will be delivered in one of the bloodies attacks on the city.

The fate of CBI director Ranjit Sinha hangs in the balance after the Supreme Court took serious note of a mysterious visitors' logbook at his residence, which purports to shows multiple visits by those accused in virtually every major CBI case. After initially attempting to bluster his way out of the scandal, Mr Sinha now says that he did meet some of those named, either as personal friends, or because as accused, they have a right to be heard. This week, on Truth vs Hype, we investigate the trail of names in the Sinha logbook - has the CBI chief breached the propriety of his office? And worse, is he guilty of diluting some of the most serious corruption cases being probed by the agency?

In the past 10 days, millions of no-frills bank accounts have been opened under the government's new Jan Dhan scheme, the brainchild of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The template is not vastly different to the financial inclusion model attempted by the UPA, which met with partial success. We travel to the ground to report on the obstacles and opportunities of bringing banking to the doorstep of rural India.

In the past week, border tensions between India and Pakistan have erupted; they are at the highest since the 1971 war, according to the director general of the BSF. We travel to Ground Zero to trace the chronology of how the firing began, how it ended, and what the escalation of a crisis means to those living in the conflict zone. As Jammu and Kashmir heads for elections, we also look at the political calculus of border tensions.

The alleged gang-rape and conversion of a Hindu girl in Meerut, in western Uttar Pradesh, galvanised Hindutva groups, who have used this incident to intensify their campaign against what they call 'love jihad' - the organised wooing of Hindu girls by Muslim men on false pretenses. The same charge was made when a young Hindu woman was killed in Faizabad in central UP. This week, NDTV retraces the evidence in Meerut and Faizabad to discover whether there is any basis to the 'love jihad', or has it been conjured up by Hindutva fantasists as a means to enforce patriarchy and keep the communal pot on the boil.

If you are a six-year-old in Gaza, you have already lived through three wars. Using this devastating statistic as a lens, we look at what growing up in a conflict zone means for the very young. There is the risk of injury or death, and of mental scars. But even those who make it are faced with a deeper crisis, where this tiny, claustrophobic strip, closed off on all sides, has become a dead end for their dreams.

As the tenous ceasefire breaks down and war returns to Gaza Strip, we dissect the anatomy of the ugly nature of the conflict, one of the most complex in the world. It's even more complex to report because of the propaganda battles that both sides are fighting, each feeding off each other: the real war and the virtual war.

Gaza is not unfamiliar to war but never at this scale. Already, new terrible records are being set. This week, Truth vs Hype travels to Gaza to report on the many facets of this brutal conflict : how Gaza's young are the most vulnerable victims of Gaza violence, on how Israel's claims that its a 'humanitarian' army do not match the ground reality, and Hamas' double edged role in this war as protectors and also perpetrators of violence.

Power prices went up in Delhi this month, prompting the usual protests, which led us to plunge into the debate: are electricity rates too high in the city? Are the distribution companies making huge profits ? Or as these companies claim, the truth is the exact reverse- prices are too low, and they have mounted crores of loss? This week we try and decode the exasperatingly complex world of Delhi's power pricing, which is representative of the flare ups over power tariffs in other Indian cities.

The late monsoons have meant that a very large percentage of crops have not been planted, impacting livelihoods and food prices. Water is still scarce for irrigation and drinking. As always, our politicians blame the rain gods, but as found out that the reasons for the water crisis are man made - whether it's manufacturing water shortage in cities to justify thousands of crores of dams or how the crisis in West and Central India acutely hit by drought may have been exacerbated by the need to supply uninterrupted electricity during election time.

This week we travelled to Nasik, the heart of India's onion belt, to understand the forces that determine the trade of this politically volatile vegetable. We attempt to get inside the tightly controlled ecosystems of traders and political patrons who control the ebb and flow of onions across the country, whose rising prices have raising anxiety levels in the corridors of power.

Summer has come, and with it the inevitable power cuts, and the familiar solutions to end India's power crisis: build more power plants, increase coal mining (never mind those pesky environmental laws), and hike power rates. This week on Truth vs Hype we discover how each of these assumptions don't stand up to scrutiny. Indeed, pursuing them might come at a high environmental and social cost.

The Intelligence Bureau report, which alleges that a clutch of foreign funded NGOs have deliberately stalled India's growth continues to spark a raging debate. We take a hard look at the IB's allegations: do they have the facts to back their claims? And has the IB grossly oversimplified the complex equation between foreign funds, NGOs and policymakers?

One of the first decisions of the Narendra Modi government has been the setting up of a Special Investigation Team to give speed up unearthing of black money stashed abroad and in India. This week, we summarise some of the challenges - political, procedural and legal - that the SIT may face at it attempts to track down the billions of dollars that are supposed to form India's black economy.

Even before he formally takes office with his team, Narendra Modi has hit the decks running, asking for presentations from bureaucrats, shaping policy proposals, even mulling a downsized government. This week, we report on the buzz in Delhi's corridors of power, which are already getting a taste of the working style of the Modi sarkar, as well as the new Prime Minister's possible priorities, of which economic revival seems to be key.

Narendra Modi has wrapped up one of the most relentless and high-decibel campaigns in recent political memory. But its genius lies not so much in converting those who attend his rallies, but to have already convinced the people of his successes in Gujarat model even before they get there. This week, we trace the origins of what some call the Modi 'wave': did Modi indeed perform a miracle in Gujarat, or is it a miracle of marketing? How did his messaging reach remote corners of the country?

Elections in Andhra Pradesh have always been high spending, but as a newly divided state goes to vote, the intense churn has seen money power playing a greater role than ever before. A new breed of multi-crore businessmen have taken centrestage, some of them facing corruption charges. But in the political climate of Andhra Pradesh, that doesn't matter - all that counts is the bottomline.