This week, Newslaundry’s Abhinandan Sekhri, Raman Kirpal and Shardool Katyayan are joined by senior journalists Andrew Whitehead and Nirupama Subramanian.

On the possible rationale behind UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision to go for early polls, Andrew says that it’s a question that “even his fellow conservatives are asking because the polls were strongly against Sunak”. 

Nirupama says that India’s relationship with the UK will change on the basis of the poll results. “If labour comes back with a huge majority, and with Prime Minister Narendra Modi not having the same majority here…the bargaining power of India in its trade talks will be affected.”

On the NEET controversy, Abhinandan says he has received many requests to cover the issue in comparison with the farmer protests. Shardool says, “One possible reason is that doctors have access to you and poor farmers don’t.” Raman points to the scale of the controversy and says that nearly 23 lakh students took the NEET exam this year. “If we consider their families, the affected population would go into crores.”

This and a whole lot more. Tune in!

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