Covid in India; Susan Rogers, Prince's sound engineer; panic attacks; the novel Careless

India remains in the grip of a Covid crisis with record numbers of cases being reported every day. Oxygen and vaccines are running out and hospitals are overwhelmed. Save The Children has warned it could be facing thousands of additional deaths among children under five and an increase in maternal deaths, as hospitals and clinics are directing most of its staff and medicines to coping with Covid-19 patients. We hear from Dr Rajesh Khanna about the work he is doing to help women and children access vital healthcare. And here in the UK thousands of people continue to worry about the safety and well-being of their loved ones in India. Surya Elango a community reporter at BBC Radio Sheffield joins Anita to share those broader concerns and also the story of her own mother who has been in India since December looking after her elderly parent.

Susan Rogers tells us what it was like working with the 80s pop artist Prince as his sound engineer on albums including ‘Purple Rain, ‘Around the World in a Day and ‘Sign o’ the Times’. After two decades in the music industry Susan Rogers left and went on to earn a doctorate in psychology. She’s now a professor of music at Berklee College in Boston, and is being awarded the Music Producers Guild’s ‘Outstanding Contribution to Music’– the first woman to ever win the award.

‘Careless’ is the debut novel by Kirsty Capes and tells the story of Bess a girl in foster care and looks at the treatment of girls in the care system. Kirsty Capes was herself a care leaver and tells us about her PHD which examines the representation of care experienced children in contemporary fiction. She explains why she would like to see better portrayal in the media of people growing up in care and what it was like working under the supervision of Booker prize winning author Bernadine Evaristo. And the mental health blogger and author of ‘We're All Mad Here’, Claire Eastham has now written a new book, ‘F**K I Think I'm Dying: How I learned to live with panic’. She explains how she manages her own panic attacks which she’s had for nearly a decade. She joins Anita with psychotherapist Dawn Estefan to discuss panic attacks, why we have them, how they feel and how best to cope with them.

Presenter: Anita Rani Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed