Prime Minister Norengra Modi is the most powerful man in Indian politics,

but big questions remain about how he's held on to power.

India is really in danger now.

All the democratic structures have been compromised.

Cyberhacking, mass arrest, and what it means for India's democracy on the latest

episode of a Sunday story from NPR's Up First Podcast.

This is Fresh Air.

I'm Dave Davies.

My guest, Dr. Anthony Fauchy, is one of the most recognizable people in America. For much of the past four years he's been the public face of the government's response to the COVID pandemic,

earning admiration and gratitude from millions and from others condemnation for masking requirements business school and travel

restrictions and among the most darkly conspiratorial for somehow causing the catastrophe. Both points of view were on display at a House Committee hearing where he was thanked profusely by Democrats and told he should be in prison by one Republican.

But Fauchy's leadership role in protecting the nation's health predates COVID by decades.

He headed the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes

of Health for 38 years before retiring in 2022 to take an academic

appointment.

He played leading roles in responding to the AIDS crisis, the Ebola outbreak, the SARS

epidemic, the threat of anthrax, and more.

He became a skilled Washington player, advising seven presidents and constantly briefing

Congress in public and private hearings. And he never gave up seeing patients,

at one point climbing into protective gear

resembling a space suit to treat a hospitalized Ebola patient.

Anthony Fauchy is now a professor at Georgetown University with a joint appointment at the

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