one other question to you: why not let people post on their own and remove only the really offensive posts, after some # of people identify that post as offensive and you then read up the post to determine if it is indeed offensive and proceed to mark it as such? instead of now holding all posts until you review? Just a friendly question. This process is annoying, not saying you are annoying. But the process is. Still appreciate your civil discourse. :-)

looks like my partial reply was submitted by mistake just a minute ago. please delete that. Here goes:

As I said, first of all, thanks for keeping a civil tone. Had abhinandan done that, he would have earned himself some credit, despite being clueless on most other things. But we'll get to that later. This is going to be a longwinded reply, because I dont have a lot of time to do back and forth. But I figured I would engage in this discussion since you are civil and seem genuinely interested in the arguments.

On the interview style topic, it looks to me like you are conflating debate with interviews. If you really are interviewing, there is actually a cardinal rule not to insert yourself or make your positions or preferences the center of discussion. It is ok to ask clarifying questions or correct misinformation with factual data (only if you know what you are talking about). But not to debate or insert your opinions and talking points into the interview. Case in point: what has prof Babones support for Trump or lack there of, or his position on Jan 6 capitol hill incident got to do with his topic of interview which is: Mr Babones reasoning of how India's intellectuals are anti-india as the reason why rankings are skewed. Mr Sekhri inserts his opinions on these events and people as a way to paint Mr Babones as an extremist or right winger etc. He makes several such attempts throughout the interview. There is no interviewing style under which this can be categorized as a legitimate interview technique. Feel free to take a look a ton of long term journalists and their style of combative interviews. But we can agree to disagree

I am not sure where you got "you seem to imply that with respect to India there are UN "resolutions suggesting the country is fascist" from my post above. perhaps you misinterpreted something I wrote? No, my point, which was articulated by Babones in his interview with Sikhri and implied several times in his original interview with Rajdeep is this: Generally UN resolutions DONT declare a state as fascist. But they do (as in the case of Israel) IMPLY a state is X or Y (such as fascist, oppressive, undemocratic, you name it) through a series of resolutions brought in at regular intervals. Such resolutions if they pass the security council (or the general assembly which ever is the right venue) can take a toll on any country, having to defend yourself in private diplomatic discussions. Please open up a spreadsheet and tally up all the UN resolutions that were brought in against Israel in the UN and see how they line up to a narrative of Israel being an oppressive human rights violator. Now the point is not whether they are right or wrong. Babones is saying without Russia, India would have faced a similar fate in the security council and gen assembly on Kashmir or other topics. His point is spot on, irrespective of whether you think India should face such a fate or not. So Abhinandan simply didnt comprehend what Mr Babones was saying, all the while trying to "educate" him on UN.

When you say "The general line of questioning was going towards a legitimate question that no good response was provided for by Babones. If Babones suggests Indians shouldn't criticise the government because it could hurt India internationally in bodies like the UN or rankings" I can only assume, you simply didnt watch Mr Babones interview with Rajdeep. In the case of Mr Sikhri, that assumption isnt valid. So I know Mr Sikhri simply has no listening comprehension skills. Mr Babones explicitly states in his interview with Rajdeep, that he thinks (I am paraphrasing here) Indias "intellectuals" have every right to criticize the government ANYWHERE. He says they shouldnt allow their personal dislike for the government or the PM color their objective evaluation of various parameters regarding Indian democracy.

As I said above, Mr Babones made it amply clear in his interview with Rajdeep that he wasnt against dissent or disagreement. This is a non-sequiter. Mr Abhinandan was upset because Mr Babones concluded India's intellectuals are anti-India (I show this is the only conclusion you can reach logically, in my other post in the other thread) and that is the reason why India's rankings find itself in ridiculous situation compared to Hong Kong or Afghanistan or for that matter Saudi Arabia etc.

Babones' arguments based on solid statistical and data foundations. Abhinandan was childish and rude while not even understanding Babones' arguments.

Your supposed 'cardinal rule' that an interviewer should never show their own opinion, is definitely false. There is no single type of interview in journalism. Some are purely factual Q&As, some are discussions between to opposing viewpoints or opinions, and most are a mixture of the two.

You might want to argue that you prefer one style over another, though Newslaundry expressly pitches itself as a cross of journalism that is also entertaining and opinionated, unlike most TV channels where anchors pretend to be journalists while they're holding opinionated sermons...

Regarding the UN point, you seem to imply that with respect to India there are UN "resolutions suggesting the country is fascist". Can you please share these, if there are such, which seems to be what Sekhri was asking?

The general line of questioning was going towards a legitimate question that no good response was provided for by Babones. If Babones suggests Indians shouldn't criticise the government because it could hurt India internationally in bodies like the UN or rankings, then how can any country's intellectuals in the world ever criticise their own country?

Democracy only exists because there is dissent and disagreement and information being available. Not criticising your own government for fear that other countries may think worse of you, is basically what China, Iran and Russia are requiring of their populations. So how would you (or how would you think Babones) would reconcile those positions?

where to start? I think Abhinandan claimed he was not a journalist. That is one of the very few statements he made which is truthful. If you are an interviewer the cardinal rule is you do not show your opinion in questions or turn your pet peeves into questions. Your objective is to get information from the interviewee and let the audience judge that information on its own merit. Particularly when you are utterly ignorant about the topic like Abhinandan was. Let me illustrate:

I dont think he has ever taken a look at UN resolutions (title and text). There has never been a UN resolution that declares a country a fascist including countries that are outright fascist. I dont think he understands how UN works or the word fascist. He interpreted wrongly, the colloquial statement in a public interview (not a conference presentation) "without the russian veto, UN will be able to cast India as fascist" as a UN resolution stating that India is fascist, while there was no discussion of UN resolutions in that sentence. So no-one is remotely suggesting that UN will declare a country fascist. But they can pass a series of resolutions suggesting the country is "fascist" adversely impacting its standing in the US. He cites Israel as an example. There are other examples too. But Abhinandan doesnt have the foggiest clue about UN or its history of resolutions or how a resolution is drafted and passed, while prof Babones correctly explains how the sausage is made in UN.

Maybe Mr Sekhri should actually seek a job in the "circus" refers to. But then neither children nor adults enjoy a seething clown.

Wow, thanks for sharing that Twitter thread by Babones. He really loves to rant, doesn't he?

We hereby retract our earlier comment when the first Babones thread was posted a month ago, when we had initially said he looked a bit batty, then we watched his full India Today video after urging, and retracted out statement and clarified that he wasn't completely batty:

https://www.legallyindia.com/convos/topic/242851-indias-intellectual-class-is-anti-india-as-a-class-and-not-as-an-individual-salvatore-babones-at-india-today-conclave#comment-243278

Sorry, didn't have a chance to fully watch the video yesterday but just the first 2 minutes - we generally don't share videos from questionable sources without having watched them or being able to confirm that it actually adds to the discussion, and this one looked particularly bizarre.

Have done you the favour of watching the full video now, and can confirm: the video is shared by Pgurus (first flag), and the fellow started out ranting about George Soros, and it didn't get better from there.

There was some conspiracy stuff about Tulsi Gabbard, Hinduism, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Omidyar, yadiyaa something, then he rants inexplicably about the weather in Hawaii and how much he likes going to Hawaii for vacations. Then he went into rigged elections, communists, fixing British democracy or something along those lines. The only thing missing was mentioning lizard people and actually criticism of Newslaundry...

The only core to his argument is that Omidyar provided some seed funding to Newslaundry, but it's also riddled with factual errors, in that he can't even get the stake owned by Omidyar right (if someone's really interested in Newslaundry ownership structure, they're quite upfront about it: https://www.newslaundry.com/2021/07/02/who-owns-newslaundry ).

And he also does the old trick of: "I'm not saying Newslaundry is XYZ [insert thing you hate or that scares you here], but questions should be asked." That's scarcely better than this kind of stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vc3vt1Gqrn4

Feel free to check out the video on PGurus YouTube channel but the video doesn't need to be amplified on LI or add to the discussion.

The LI moderator, in my opinion, is biased and exercises her bias willy-nilly while going about her business here on LI.

I left a link on this thread last night that sheds light on Newslaundy’s funding. Nothing excessive or unfair was written/ said in either my comment or the link. I thought of that comment as a fair counterbalance to the moderator's promo for Newslaundy’s subscription page - just so that we have all the facts before spending our hard-earned money.

Now her (the moderator's) conduct bears noting. She doesn't publish my comment. Does not cite grounds for refusal. What else should one make of this!?

If someone were to do the same thing to a right-of-centre news outlet, she would allow the trolls to go guns blazing!

Whatever happened to Kian? Has he sold Legallyindia to Robert Vadra/TMC/ INC?

1. Never trust any political parties, they all lie.

2. Please explain the word 'wokism'. What is this thing you speak of? Is it a religion? Is there a book I can read so I can become one?

3. Please explain the word 'Marxist'? Are you born with it or do you catch it later in life? Do I have to apply for a membership card, and can I just choose to be one?

Will be happy to sign up for whatever you have in mind, pls let me know so I can make an informed decision.

Here's what Salvatore Babones has to say about Newslaundry and Abhinandan Sekhri -

https://twitter.com/sbabones/status/1606834372212039682?s=46&t=pq43kdCF2TFWeyWzaKO97w

Thanks for sharing. FYI, that video is normally behind a paywall, so if you like what they do, and since they don't have an ad-funded model, do consider throwing a subscription their way if you can afford it:

https://www.newslaundry.com/subscription