It’s (new) show time, folks.
Have you had a chance to watch ‘Everybody’s Business’? Or ‘AI Sight’? And how about ‘Officer’s Desk’ and economist Bidisha Bhattacharya’s videos on trade and economy?
If you’d rather read, there’s ‘The First Metro’ and ‘Brahmastra’, both out every fortnight, although these are for subscribers only.
All of these are the latest additions to ThePrint’s journalism, and I would urge you to watch them or read them. I wouldn’t do so if I didn’t think they would help improve your understanding of the India we live in, through the prism of its economy, the latest technology, our security environment, or the people and places that have helped frame the present.
I’ll introduce you to these properties in some depth a little later.
However, before we go there, a shout out to ‘Off The Cuff’ (OTC) with ThePrint’s Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta which has recently gone back to the ground. In other words, it’s in-person once again. It was in Hyderabad with Telangana Chief Minister Revanth Reddy and on 30 September it’s in Mumbai to host Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Let me also say a few words about ThePrint’s efforts to go live in Kathmandu during what is being called the Gen Z uprising that toppled the KP Sharma Oli government and led to the installation of a new interim administration under former Chief Justice Sushila Karki.
The violent street protests began on 8 September and ThePrint’s first reports from Nepal’s capital came out the following day. We sent three correspondents to Kathmandu to report the agitation—that’s more than most mainstream newspapers. Correspondent Udit Hinduja was right there on the streets along with the protestors.
Senior Correspondent Debdutta Chakraborty and Senior Multimedia Journalist Manisha Mondal followed. Over the next two weeks, they reported extensively and in depth about the overthrow of the Oli government and the impact of the change on different aspects of life in Nepal.
Here are some of those reports — ranging from the voices of young protestors on Nepal’s streets, to tourists caught in the unrest, to the army’s role, unemployment and migration, and even the toll on stray dogs. The Gen Z roadmap for Nepal and the slow return to normalcy were also covered.
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Staying on top of trends
Audiences worldwide are shifting to video, podcasts, and other social media for news, views, and analysis, as borne out by the latest Reuters Institute Digital News Report 2025.
In India it is no different. To quote the Reuters report: “Over the years, our data for India shows a strong preference for smartphones to access news along with social media platforms such as YouTube (55%), WhatsApp (46%), Instagram (37%), and Facebook (36%) being predominantly used for this purpose amongst our primarily English-speaking survey sample.”
There has been a marked shift to digital-only platforms too, and Reuters recognises ThePrint specifically.
It says online platforms of “legacy news brands in print” like Times of India, Hindustan Times, and Dainik Bhaskar enjoy good online readership, “as do digital-only news platforms in English (ThePrint, 14%) and bilingual languages (NewsClick, 11%).”
ThePrint is making a targeted effort to keep up with these audience trends.
“We are consciously doing more in video content, even at the cost of duplication (with print),” said Janki Dave, News Editor in charge of the video section at ThePrint. “In May and June, we saw an uptick, and the aim is to do better, longer, and more original work.”
Each of our new shows is meant to plug a gap in ThePrint’s video line-up.
“After ‘MacroSutra’ (which featured the late Radhika Pandey), we didn’t have a show on economics — and there was audience demand for one,” explained Dave. That’s why ‘Everybody’s Business’ came about.
Nisheeth Upadhyay, Editor (News Operations), hosts ‘Everybody’s Business’ and ‘AI Sight’.
“I am not trained in economic matters but I have an interest,” he said. “I try to focus on big themes, with wider implications. It needs a lot of research.”
Obviously, topicality drives the show. So, the latest ‘Everybody’s Business’ is about the Sensex remaining ‘flat’ with ‘zero’ returns in the last year.
In another, Upadhyay dealt with “a drop in paint sales, sluggish auto demand and bank credit growth” as direct indicators of the health of the economy.
The show explains these developments and what they mean for the Indian economy.
“My quest: no jargon, and to explain simply,” said Upadhyay.
Fresh space for AI, economy, bureaucracy
There’s audience demand to keep up with the lightning-quick sweep of AI. And so there’s ‘AI Sight’.
“AI is not the future, it is the present,” said Dave. “We do not have much on technology at ThePrint, but we cannot ignore AI.”
For Upadhyay, the show is an opportunity to explore a subject that keenly interests him. It may be a sub-domain of technology and the economy, but “AI will be a beat itself, soon,” he said. “We have to ride the wave and keep an eye on it — it’s everywhere.”
I can’t pretend that I understand the technology aspect of AI, and so I find the subject opaque. However, I do understand its vitality in contemporary life, so I diligently listen to Upadhyay.
I watched the episodes on OpenAI’s launch of ChatGPT 5, and another on AI’s application in medicine. Obviously, I understood the latter better.
Bidisha Bhattacharya, Associate Fellow at the Chintan Research Foundation, is ThePrint’s latest contributor. Each column or episode is based on a news point and the role of trade in the economy. I found her videos accessible, focused, and informative. I can honestly say I learnt something each time.
For example, in ‘The problem with India’s exports isn’t just Trump tariff. It’s the PCI’, Bhattarcharya lucidly explained PCI (Product Complexity Index) in a way that I was able to grasp its importance.
‘Officer’s Desk’, the fourth recent video show, deals with civil servants. It’s longish — over an hour per episode — and sees Sanya Dhingra in conversation with a wide range of senior retired government officials.
“There are few such programmes in the news media,” said Janki Dave. “It looks at civil servants’ lives and experiences. Technically, it’s not linked to the news cycle. But it’s important — people know so little about those at the heart of decision-making in the country.”
Sanya Dhingra has been reporting on the bureaucracy at ThePrint for about eight years. “This is for a niche audience that’s interested in understanding how the civil service works,” she said.
The objective of the show is to explore the lives of people in power and “guide the audience”, through civil servants’ narrative of the times they served in, to tell stories about India.
“It’s historical but throws light on contemporary issues too,” added Dhingra.
She has already sat down face to face with former Finance Secretary Subhash Garg, who took premature retirement after an uneasy tenure under Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman; Ronen Sen, former diplomat who was at the heart of the India-US nuclear deal under Dr Manmohan Singh; Ashok Lavasa, former Election Commissioner who resigned from his post; and a former Railway Board chairman, Arunendra Kumar, among others.
“These were people in pivotal roles during their service years,” said Dhingra. “I have to do a lot of research for each one — up to three days.”
The show isn’t only professional — it allows the officers to wander through their personal lives and reveal themselves to the audience. It’s slow and easy to listen to, unusual in the rush-hour speed of most programmes. Do check it out.
Also Read: Expert voices in public spaces—what ThePrint Speakers Bureau offers
Subscribers get more of the inside track
Newsletters are one way to offer subscribers something special and extra. Something inaccessible to others.
So far, ThePrint has been a little slow in this department. Our original offerings include TheFinePrint, a curated roundup of articles and videos that makes sense of the day’s news and views, both from ThePrint and elsewhere.
Alongside it are ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Contributing Editor Praveen Swami, a deep dive into foreign media coverage of international security and foreign affairs, and ‘In My Opinion’ by Rama Lakshmi, Editor (Opinion and Ground Reports), with her choice of opinion pieces and in-depth reports for subscribers.
“We didn’t have domain-specific newsletters,” said Nisheeth Upadhyay, “and there was a demand for them.”
That demand is now being met. There’s ‘The First Metro’ by Deputy Editor Manasi Phadke, who oversees editorial operations for Maharashtra and neighbouring states, and ‘Brahmastra’, by Deputy Editor Snehesh Alex Philip, who heads the defence, strategic, and foreign affairs vertical.
Both are fortnightly. There’s another in the pipeline on politics, by Editor (Politics) D K Singh.
For Phadke, this was a way to contribute more to ThePrint.
“Being in Mumbai can be a limitation when the mother ship is in Delhi. I wanted to do more. So I suggested ‘The First Metro’ to Shekhar (Gupta),” she explained.
“The idea was to write about the city— the financial capital of India, always very, very relevant — and through its lens tell the story of developments in India. Mumbai is a melting pot: it’s about finance, but also about culture, Bollywood, urban development, infrastructure, and language — so many subjects which reflect India’s trajectory of change.”
I really enjoyed reading ‘The First Metro’. As Phadke told me, this was to be more “conversational, edgy, personal”. And so it was. It has all sorts of nuggets tucked away in corners of the city that Manasi reveals as she travels through it.
For Snehesh Alex Philip, ‘Brahmastra’ allowed him to focus on defence and developments in the security sector in a way that went beyond a news report.
“This gives me a chance to give a perspective from my point of view without being an opinion piece,” Philip said. “The subjects can be in India or around the world — but they will always have the impact on India as the focus.”
So there you have it. More of ThePrint, but in its tradition of providing its audience with informative, analytical pieces that take both the short and the long view.
Happy reading and happy viewing.
Shailaja Bajpai is ThePrint’s Readers’ Editor. Please write in with your views and complaints to readers.editor@theprint.in
(Edited by Asavari Singh)