The fact that we are losing control over our own sense of time, how we spend our money, and the decisional autonomy that we exercise on these social media platforms is worrying. Th ... Read more
The fact that we are losing control over our own sense of time, how we spend our money, and the decisional autonomy that we exercise on these social media platforms is worrying. That we don't have a law in place to restrict how these platforms use our information is what is problematic." - Siddharth Sonkar, author, of 'What Privacy Means' talks to @utterflea on this week's Books & Authors podcast about the idea of privacy in the Indian context, about government surveillance having a chilling effect on democracy, and about the inadequacy of the current laws to prevent corporate entities from having access to vast troves of private information about individuals. Read more
The heady post-independence years of the 1950s when it was believed that democratic planning could take the nation from abject poverty to prosperity, India's Five-Year plans that g ... Read more
The heady post-independence years of the 1950s when it was believed that democratic planning could take the nation from abject poverty to prosperity, India's Five-Year plans that grew out of the attempt to marry liberal democracy to a socialist economy, the role of the Indian Statistical Institute and the dynamism of technocrats like PC Mahalanobis in the now-defunct Planning Commission, and how the zeal for planning permeated everything from films to family life - Nikhil Menon, author of 'Planning Democracy', which paints a great picture of a young India striving to find its unique niche in a polarised world, talks to Manjula Narayan on this week's Books & Authors podcast. Read more
"The idea is to mirror the flavour of snacks to tea and not to contrast it. Contrasting snacks can ruin the taste of tea, though it does work well with masala chai," says Pallavi N ... Read more
"The idea is to mirror the flavour of snacks to tea and not to contrast it. Contrasting snacks can ruin the taste of tea, though it does work well with masala chai," says Pallavi Nigam Sahay, author A Sip in time. She talks to @utterflea about India's finest teas and pairing them with the right teatime treats on this week's Books & Authors podcast. Read more
"With Lata Mangeshkar went a huge, massive chunk of film history and film music history," says Nasreen Munni Kabir, author, 'Lata Mangeshkar... In Her Own Voice'. This book of conv ... Read more
"With Lata Mangeshkar went a huge, massive chunk of film history and film music history," says Nasreen Munni Kabir, author, 'Lata Mangeshkar... In Her Own Voice'. This book of conversations with the legend reveals her photographic memory, her magical ability to change her voice to suit specific actors, her deep understanding of the emotions in lyrics and of sound technology, and how, in the words of Dilip Kumar, her songs "are part of our lives and memory". Read more
"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 ... Read more
"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. Read more
"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 situati ... Read more
"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 Read more
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 ... Read more
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 Read more
"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 circulati ... Read more
"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. Read more
"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 conversatio ... Read more
"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. Read more
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 ... Read more
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. Read more
