Siddhantiyan News Thread

OOC: This will basically a news bulletin of things happening (either domestic or in Eras at large) that only merit one post and don't really belong in any other thread. This post specifically is just to describe the media landscape.

News Outlets
Television
AS24: Internationally focused news outlet owned by the federal government via the state-owned company Arthasiddhanta World Media (अर्थसिद्धांता विश्व मीडिया). Produces politically centrist and independent content.
DD1: Abbreviated for Doordarshan 1 (literally Television 1 in Mercanti), DD1 is a free-to-air television channel focused on domestic audiences owned by the Doordarshan Group. It possesses the largest market share for media in AS at an average of 24%. In terms of news, it produces and presents center to center-right wing content. It does produce and broadcast content for other purposes.
VFM TV: Privately owned 24-hour news and weather channel aimed at the domestic market in AS. Produces and presents content perceived as right-wing.
AS2: Public national television channel owned by the federal government via the state-owned Arthasiddhanta Television (अर्थसिद्धांता दूरदर्शन) company. Airs and produces a variety of content, but with regards to news produces and presents largely centrist content.
Radio
Radio AS: State-owned radio outlet owned by the federal government that produces and broadcasts a variety of content. With regards to news, it presents largely centrist content.
RASI: Abbreviated for Radio AS International in Mercanti, RASI is the official Siddhantiyan international radio broadcaster. It produces politically centrist content with regards to domestic affairs, but occassionally produces content that is viewed as biased towards Arthasiddhanta.
Newspapers
Is Samay: Is Samay (इस समय, translated to "The Times" in Mercanti) is one of the major newspapers of record in AS. Produces politically center to center-left content, with op-eds frequently featuring left-wing perspectives.
Darpan: Darpan (दर्पण, translated to "Mirror" in Mercanti) is another major newspaper of record in AS. Produces content with a center to center-left stance as well, but is perceived as more moderate compared to Is Samay.
Sandesh Vahak: Sandesh Vahak (संदेश वाहक, translated to "Messenger" in Mercanti) is the third of Arthasiddhanta's major national newspapers. Produces content with a conservative stance.

Most of the content in this news thread will either be from AS24 or from one of the newspapers if an op-ed. This thread will also serve to link larger news stories that are deserving of their own threads.

Issued on January 7, 2022-3:28PM
By Thomas Jacquet
NADIKAMAGH--Upon the reopening of Parliament on the 5th of January, Prime Minister Anuj Mukherjee has announced a proposal for a Drug Decriminalization Act. The act seeks to do what it is named for--decriminalize the possession of all drugs in Arthasiddhanta, provided they are possessed for personal usage, and not for sale or production.

The policy was part of the manifestos of all parties that make up the governing Sanyukt Pragatashil Gathbandhan (SPG), and aims to decriminalize drugs to reduce the burden on the criminal justice and prison system, lower the prison population, and encourage those with drug-related issues to seek help.

The Prime Minister argued in the Lok Sabha that "the current drug policy that was initiated decades prior by the Rudhivadi (Conservative) Gathbandhan has proven to be nothing but a way to fill up our prisons and punish people in underprivileged and underserviced communities. It is time, and has been time, for Arthasiddhanta to treat the chronic usage of drugs not as a moral failure on the part of an individual, but as a mental health issue that must be addressed as any other mental health issue. Prison does not solve the root causes of drug addiction, nor will it ever."

The Prime Minister was met with some jeers from fellow members of Parliament. Some conservative members of Parliament have expressed fear at the proposal, believing that punishment has a deterrent effect on drug usage. "We don't want people being able to buy cocaine and heroin in the streets and then just get a slap on the wrist and leave. You have to deter people when you are able to", RSD MP Tejasvi Sharma argued to the Prime Minister.

Mukherjee responded by saying that his bill did not outlaw or direct funding away from drug education programs or public health messaging about the adverse effects of drugs. He said that the policy was meant more for helping those already addicted to drugs recover better, in addition to pointing out evidence that the introduction of harsh drug laws did not decrease drug usage, and actually led to an increase in drug-related violence.

The bill is expected to pass both the Lok Sabha and Pradesh Sabha in the coming months, and political analysts see it as a way for Mukherjee to strengthen his position before the year's general election in May. The bill also sees widespread support from coalition partners the Swatantra Dal (SD), who have been reluctant throughout Mukherjee's time as Prime Minister to pass some of his economic legislation, and thus some see it as a way for Mukherjee to strengthen his coalition ahead of the 2022 campaign.
Mercanti translation by Ashwin Bhaskar

Issue of Housing to be Critical in 2022 Elections
While progress has been made, the homelessness crisis has not been addressed as adequately as some voters may have hoped for. How might this affect the election?
By Aarti Vasudevan
Translated by Abraham Salem
Published on January 28, 2022-2:18PM

Tents from a homeless encampment line a street in Nadikamagh's Ashok Nagar.
One of the key issues of the 2018 election was that of the housing crisis. An issue that affected most urban voters, every party contesting a seat in the last election had at least one section on their housing policy. Ultimately, the Workers' and Farmers' Party (Kirti Kisan Dal in Suchari) platform gained immense traction in the media due to its promise of building 150,000 units of social housing and annually across the country, and it received credit for helping the KKD win a plurality of seats in Parliament.

The promise appealed to a variety of concerns voters had regarding housing with high costs serving to prevent ownership and forcing residents to pay higher and higher portions of their incomes on rents. And this is without mentioning the homelessness crisis and its grotesque sights that exacerbated fears of the decline of public safety, sanitation, law and order, and housing affordability for almost all income groups. The platforms to address these issues ranged from the Conservative Alliance's proposals to clear massive homeless encampments and roll back environmental regulations to help stimulate new construction (although the effectiveness of these proposals was doubted by many housing experts), while the victorious United Progressive Alliance aimed to build new units of housing to take the homeless off the streets.

The Mukherjee government has been able to move forward with some historic steps to increase the national stock of housing, such as tying federal transportation funding to the outlawing of single-family zoning, increasing the budget of the Housing and Urban Development Ministry to a historic high, the Affordable Housing Acts of 2019, which forced provinces and localities to allow residents to build duplexes, subdivide lots, prohibits downzoning, and much more. The Mukherjee government has also launched lawsuits against provinces with property tax limits, so as to increase the potential economic benefit to selling homes, and made it harder for residents and cities to launch lawsuits against construction of homeless facilities.

So what has any of this done to solve the housing crisis? Housing advocates and activists have largely welcomed the Mukherjee government's work on the issue, but they have many qualms with some possible measures Parliament could have taken. "Overall", starts Anthony Thauvin, director of the National Coalition for Affordable Housing, "he's been a godsend. I think he recognizes the issues that are at play here, how critical they are, and the past 4 years have shown at least more committment to solving these issues than any other government has shown us in the past few decades now."Thauvin is clear to point out, however, that while Mukherjee has certainly been an improvement, there's much he could have done.

"I mean, it's clear to see for everyone. The homeless encampments are still out there. The tent cities, the open defecation, you go to some of the neighborhoods in the Three Cities, there's almost no difference from before and after. And I see so, so many people who are still spending too much of their incomes on rent and are years away from affording a home".

Where does Thauvin think the Mukherjee government has went wrong then? "He specifically promised 150,000 new units of public housing, but the coalition hasn't built much in the way of public housing at all. I understand that with Swatantra [libertarian political party] needed to form a government, it's difficult to get the government to directly do this type of stuff", Thauvin concedes. "But, we need 150,000 new units each year if we're going to address the backlog. And that's on top of what developers currently are building. He's also not been able to do things like end permitted development loopholes, for example. He has to concentrate on these things that directly benefit those on housing waiting lists too, like tying rent increases and mortgage increases to inflation, or putting taxes on empty lots and properties." He was also somewhat critical of the government's focus on home ownership, although he acknowledges that the political and cultural climate of the country would have made that key to anyone's housing plans.

Thauvin shared with us statistics from his organization, which state that only 20,000 new units of housing were built annually by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development itself during the Mukherjee government. The bulk, an estimated 50,000 annually, were built in conjunction with private contractors, something which the think-tank Aam Aadmi (Common Man) has said costs the government more to do than hiring federal employees directly to do this work. While the think-tank acknowledges that cooperation with private contractors is necessary for much of the government's work, the report seems to indicate that the government is likely spending more money for a similar result to if it did the work itself. Thauvin's organization also expresses the need for the government to build surrounding infrastructure, like schools, roads, and houses, as well as improving transportation networks, in order to actually make upzoning a viable and palatable long-term solution. "Mukherjee himself had huge plans for infrastructure in his manifesto, but he's been cutting at all of them in every budget he's passed in his time as Prime Minister. And I think he can do better".

Overall, the housing crisis is an extremely complicated issue, which the Mukherjee government has attemped to do much to address. But a simple walk around the country's major cities shows that while some progress may have been made, a great amount of work still needs to be done in order to truly solve this issue.