"WHO has come out strongly against simple medicines like Ivermectin despite the fact that there is so much data showing that it is effective in treating COVID. This is because the vaccine lobby is very strong and they don't allow these medicines to get the publicity they deserve," says Kavery Nambisan, author of 'A Luxury Called Health', a memoir of her four-decade-long career as a surgeon in rural and small-town India. In this wide-ranging conversation with Manjula Narayan on this week's Books and Authors podcast, she speaks about treating wounded dacoits in Bihar, the problem with charity treatment, the pain of watching her husband, the poet Vijay Nambisan, succumb to cancer, her admiration for nurses who are "the trendsetters of women's liberation" in India, the effectiveness of alternative treatments like Ayurveda and homoeopathy in some cases, and the almost comic humourlessness of the extremely religious.

"Sometimes police action during riots is cramped because of the complicity of people who are ruling or those who want to rule - that is the politicians. They would like the situation to develop in a certain manner so it is not unusual to find politicians playing a very dirty game" - Aloke Lal, author of 'Murder in the Bylanes', a memoir of his stint as Deputy Inspector General, Kanpur, in the aftermath of the Babri Masjid demolition when it was one of the most volatile cities in north India, talks to Hindustan Times' Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast

Our toxic relationship with our devices, the negative impact of huge and very quick scaling up of businesses, the need to change the all-pervasive culture of lauding those sorts of practices, the banality of evil with social media exemplifying the proverb, 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions', and how to stop falling prey to FOMO, bad moods and negativity brought on by our smartphones allowing us to be online all the time -- Tanuj Bhojwani, co-author, with Nandan Nilekani, of The Art of Bitfulness talks to Manjula Narayan about all that on this week's Books & Authors podcast

"Every civilization has its territory of fantasy. The Mahabharata seems to have drawn the boundaries of that territory for the Indian people. At the time that it got into circulation, other texts too were being composed but they were restricted to certain groups, to Buddhists, Jains, or Brahmins. The Mahabharat, however, could get into anyone's imaginative territory. That freedom to wander around was the Mahabharata's great gift from the beginning and that's why it is still appreciated in different forms - on television, in films, in digital media, in art, and in drama." - GN Devy, author, Mahabharata; The Epic and the Nation talks to Manjula Narayan about the Indian obsession with the epic, the need for a Mahabharata institute that can collate versions in different languages, and his belief that India will never have a revolution that entails a definitive break from the past because we've imbibed the idea of Kalachakra or of Time as cyclical from the Mahabharata.

"People who are powerful and wealthy are always complex and layered characters," says Anirudh Kanisetti, author, Lords of the Deccan, in this week's Books & Authors conversation with Manjula Narayan, about the ambitious, adventurous, charismatic and bloodthirsty medieval dynasties of southern India from the Chalukyas to the Cholas.

Raj Kapoor's passion for film making made him literally chase clouds across the country to get the perfect shot, his great ear for music that ensured that songs and the background score added to the storytelling, his ability to get just what he wanted from his actors, his willingness to teach his team, and his eccentricities. Filmmaker, Rahul Rawail, who began as RK's assistant, talks to Manjula Narayan about his new book, Raj Kapoor: The Master at Work.

"If the ground is shifting beneath your feet at the mass level in this country, you have to figure out why it is shifting," says Nalin Mehta, author of The New BJP, a massive book that presents fresh data and insights on a range of subjects including the new caste coalitions that have changed the party and the making of a new woman-voter base.

"Vajpayee was a ruthless politician but he couldn't do with Modi what he did with others like Madhok and Govindacharya," says @sagarikaghose, author of 'Atal Bihari Vajpayee'. She talks to @utterflea about the first BJP Prime Minister's humour, likeability, unconventionality and great belief in Parliament on this week's Books& Authors podcast

"I'm sure there are a lot of people who are not very fond of me. I'm like that proverbial Trishanku figure," says film critic and Bollywood insider Anupama Chopra in a conversation on her new book 'A Place in My Heart' with host Manjula Narayan on the Books & Authors podcast.

The ethnic discrimination and genocide that preceded the birth of Bangladesh exactly 50 years ago, international apathy to the carnage, factionalism among the Bengali freedom fighters, the role of the Indian armed forces in training the MuktiBahini and underwater demolition squads... Manash Ghosh, the first journalist to report on the unfolding crisis in erstwhile East Pakistan, and author of 'Bangladesh War; Report From Ground Zero' talks to Hindustan Times' Manjula Narayan on this week's Books & Authors podcast.