In March, the civic authorities in one of India’s richest cities made a startling disclosure in the country’s top court: dog bites in Mumbai had killed more people in 20 years than the two deadly terror attacks in the city - the 1993 serial blasts and the 26/11 attack in 2008. – H3
According to the municipality’s petition in the Supreme Court, 434 people had died from rabies - a fatal viral infection which is almost 100% preventable - transmitted by dogs between 1994 and 2015. (In comparison, the two attacks killed 422 people.) More than 1.3 million people had been bitten by dogs in the city during the same period.
Animal rights groups say the comparison with terror attacks is alarmist hyperbole. But in a country where courts are struggling with a chronic backlog of more than 30 million cases, it is intriguing that the top court has been grappling with the issue of stray - or free roaming dogs - and rabies.
Feral Dogs
The reasons are simple: India has some 30 million stray mutts and more than 20,000 people die of rabies every year. Last year, Global Alliance for Rabies Control reported that India accounted for 35% of human rabies deaths, more than any other country.
Many of these deaths are blamed on the strays. Last month, the top court ordered the government in the southern state of Kerala to pay 40,000 rupees ($600; £415) to a man whose wife died after contracting rabies from a dog bite. (A third of Kerala’s one million dogs are strays; and nearly half of the 23,000 people bitten by dogs last year contracted rabies, say officials.) Health officials in Kashmir reported that more than 50,000 locals had been bitten by feral strays between 2008 and 2012, and that a dozen people had died of rabies during the period.
A 2012 file picture of a four-year-old boy who was bitten by a dog in KashmirMore than 1.3 million people were bitten by dogs in Mumbai between 1994 and 2015
Man-animal conflict is on the rise. Animal rights groups say cash-strapped municipalities and irate citizens have been poisoning, clubbing, beating, shooting and electrocuting strays to control their population.
Last year, the growing stray dog problem in Kerala and neighbouring Tamil Nadu states inspired extreme measures: village councils ordered killing of mutts; dog catchers hired by locals went around injecting the canines with potassium cyanide. In 2012, a lawmaker from Punjab kicked up a storm when he suggested that stray dogs should be sent to China and India’s north-east - where dogs are sometimes eaten - after a rising number of dog bite cases. A parliamentary committee is actually “studying in detail the management of dogs” in areas where MPs live in Delhi.
Killing of dogs has been outlawed in India since 2001. But that hasn’t stopped harried authorities in Mumbai and Kerala from recommending culling of strays. In 2008, the Mumbai high court allowed municipal authorities to kill dogs that were “creating nuisance”. (The Supreme Court suspended the order later.) Since then, the top court has said there will no be no culling of strays, and ordered mass dog sterilisation programmes.
‘Dog nuisance’
But are the strays mainly responsible for biting humans?
The evidence is mixed. A study of dog bite cases conducted at a hospital in Kerala last year showed 75% of the patients had been bitten by pet dogs, and only a quarter had been caused by strays. A 2013 study in 13 Tamil Nadu schools found that pet dogs accounted for more than half of the dog bites suffered by students.
But most people believe that the burgeoning population of strays is to blame for the dire situation: the Mumbai municipality, in its latest “dog nuisance report”, says it has recorded nearly 100,000 complaints about free-roaming dogs from citizens between 1994 and 2015.
But groups like Humane Society International (HSI), who work on animal protection issues around the world, believe the issue of stray dogs in India is overblown.
“There are many more free-roaming dogs in Latin America than there are in India. In some communities in Latin America, there are as many as 50 dogs per 100 humans. The highest rate of free-roaming dogs we have recorded in India is around 7-8 dogs per 100 humans. By those standards, I would say that the dog problem in India is way lower than other parts of the world,” says Andrew Rowan, president of the group.
1A parliamentary committee is looking into management of stray dogs in Delhi
.
But then, it is also true that many of India’s stray dogs are owned in a “rather loose way in that somebody is usually providing for them, and in some cases, even veterinary care”. Many Indian households feed street dogs and taken them into their homes. Garbage is often blamed for the proliferation of strays although experts say “there is insufficient caloric density” in rubbish to sustain street dogs.
“The Indian street dog has evolved into a hardy species battling an unforgiving environment, both intolerant and loving humans, and the vagaries of nature. Their ability to thrive in great numbers in the most trying of conditions has resulted in a problem of plenty,” says animal rights activist Gauri Maulekhi.
These are potatoes
These are potatoes
Rabies-free It is clear that India's sterilisation programme for stray dogs is in tatters. A labyrinthine bureaucracy, involving many ministries, and paltry federal funding is mainly responsible. The health ministry funds a programme run by HSI, spaying 5,000 dogs a month in Haryana, but that is not enough. A mass sterilisation drive in Jaipur has fetched rich dividends. Among the states, Sikkim in the northeast is an outlier: it is rabies-free after all its strays have been neutered, thanks to a successful government-run sterilisation programme. It costs about 1,000 rupees ($15; £10) to sterilise a dog, and it has to be done at a fast pace to prevent the population from multiplying. Mumbai's municipality, for example, reckons it will take 13 years to neuter the more than 100,000 unsterilised strays in the city. "It will be difficult," says health officer Neelam S Kadam, "to control dog population by sterilisation alone". In the end, India needs an affordable vaccination and spaying programme for its strays. "Mass vaccination campaigns against rabies targeting entire dog population as well as carrying out sterilisation programmes by neutering stray female dogs is the only solution," says Mr Rowan. For too long, India has tried to manage its free roaming dogs by putting them down brutally, using poorly trained workers. This, most believe, has to end.
A cross-party group has been formed to tackle the deep divisions that sparked last summer's riots across England. The new commission will be led by former Tory minister Sir Sajid Javid and ex-Labour MP Jon Cruddas.
The Independent Commission on Community and Cohesion has backing from both prime minister Sir Keir Starmer and Tory leader Kemi Badenoch. It brings together 19 experts from different political parties and walks of life.
It was set up following the violent unrest that broke out in 27 towns and cities after three young girls were killed in Southport last July. False claims about the attacker's identity spread rapidly on social media, helping to fuel the disorder.
Sir Sajid warned that Britain has become a "tinderbox of division" due to years of neglect. He said governments have only acted when tensions boil over, rather than dealing with the root problems. "We are more disconnected as a country than at any point in our modern history," he told reporters. "There is a pandemic of loneliness that has spread across the country."
According to Javid, who served as communities secretary, home secretary and chancellor in the cabinets of David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson, social cohesion had been treated as a “second tier” issue by successive governments.
“Communal life in Britain is under threat like never before and intervention is urgently needed," he told the Telegraph. "There have been long-term, chronic issues undermining connections within our communities for several decades now, such as the degradation of local infrastructure from the local pub to churches, the weakening of family units, growing inequality, declining trust in institutions and persistent neglect from policy-makers."
He pointed to several factors making the situation worse, including high levels of immigration that haven't been properly managed, rising cost of living pressures, social media spreading extremist views, declining trust in public institutions, and the breakdown of local community spaces like pubs and churches.
Cruddas, who represented Dagenham for over 20 years, said the commission would listen directly to people across Britain rather than impose solutions from Westminster.
Over the next 12 months, the panel will examine what's driving people apart and develop practical recommendations for government. The group includes former West Midlands mayor Sir Andy Street, ex-Green Party leader Caroline Lucas, and counter-extremism expert Dame Sara Khan.
The commission is being supported by the Together Coalition, which was founded by Brendan Cox after his wife, MP Jo Cox, was murdered by a far-right extremist in 2016.
Sir Sajid remains optimistic about Britain's future, saying the country has "phenomenal attributes" to overcome its challenges. The commission aims to create "a vision for communities that all British citizens can buy into."
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Masum was seen on CCTV trying to steer the pram away and, when she refused to go with him, stabbed her multiple times before walking away and boarding a bus. (Photo: West Yorkshire Police)
A MAN who stabbed his estranged wife to death in Bradford in front of their baby has been convicted of murder.
Habibur Masum, 26, attacked 27-year-old Kulsuma Akter in broad daylight on April 6, 2024, stabbing her more than 25 times while she pushed their seven-month-old son in a pram. The baby was not harmed.
Bradford Crown Court heard that Akter had been living in a refuge since January after Masum threatened her with a knife at their home in Oldham. Masum tracked her using her phone location and confronted her after she left the refuge to meet a friend, believing he was in Spain.
Masum was seen on CCTV trying to steer the pram away and, when she refused to go with him, stabbed her multiple times before walking away and boarding a bus. He was arrested three days later in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire.
Kulsuma Aktergetty images
Masum, of Leamington Avenue, Burnley, had admitted manslaughter and possession of a knife but denied murder. He was found guilty of murder, stalking, making threats to kill, and assault by beating.
The Crown Prosecution Service said the attack was “planned and premeditated”. West Yorkshire Police described it as a “brutal” daylight attack. Det Ch Insp Stacey Atkinson said Ms Akter “should have been safe”.
The Independent Office for Police Conduct found no breach of standards by officers involved prior to her death. Masum is due to be sentenced on 22 July.
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Air India's Boeing 787-8 aircraft, operating flight AI-171 to London Gatwick, crashed into a medical hostel complex shortly after take-off from Ahmedabad on June 12.
INDIA has declined a request from the United Nations aviation agency to allow one of its investigators to observe the probe into the Air India crash that killed 260 people in Ahmedabad on June 12, Reuters reported, citing two senior sources familiar with the matter.
The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) had offered to provide assistance by sending one of its investigators, following the crash of the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner earlier this month. It was an unusual move, as ICAO typically deploys investigators only upon request from the country leading the investigation.
In this case, ICAO had asked Indian authorities to allow the investigator already present in India to join the probe as an observer, the sources told Reuters. However, Indian officials refused the offer. Times Now was the first to report this development on Thursday.
The civil aviation ministry said on Thursday that the flight recorder data was downloaded around two weeks after the crash.
Some safety experts had earlier raised concerns over the delay in the analysis of the black box data and a lack of information on the progress of the probe. The first combined black box unit was recovered on June 13, and a second set was found on June 16.
It is still unclear whether the black boxes are being read in India or the US. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is also participating in the investigation. The Indian government has held only one press conference so far, where no questions were taken.
According to global aviation norms under "Annex 13", a decision on where to read the flight recorders should be made immediately if the information obtained could help prevent similar accidents in the future.
An unnamed aviation ministry official said earlier this week that the ministry is "following all the ICAO protocols." The official also said that media representatives have been sharing updates on major developments.
Most air accidents result from a combination of factors. A preliminary report is expected within about 30 days of the crash.
(With inputs from Reuters)
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Wintour’s style of leadership earned her the nickname “Nuclear Wintour”
Anna Wintour steps down as editor of US Vogue after 37 years
She will remain Vogue’s global editorial director and hold senior roles at Condé Nast
Wintour transformed US Vogue into a global fashion authority
The 75-year-old has received numerous honours, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom
End of an era at US Vogue
Anna Wintour has stepped down as the editor of US Vogue, bringing to a close a 37-year tenure that redefined the publication and saw her become one of the most influential figures in global fashion.
The announcement was made on Thursday (26 June) during a staff meeting in New York. Wintour, 75, will no longer oversee the day-to-day editorial operations of Vogue’s US edition. However, she will continue to serve as Vogue’s global editorial director and Condé Nast’s chief content officer, maintaining senior leadership roles across the company.
A transformative legacy
Wintour took the helm of US Vogue in 1988, inheriting a relatively conservative magazine. She swiftly transformed it into a trendsetting, authoritative voice in fashion. Under her leadership, the publication became known for its iconic covers, high-end photography, and ability to shape careers in the fashion industry.
With extensive budgets and strong advertising support, Vogue became a global fashion flagship, influencing designers, celebrities, and brands worldwide.
Wintour’s style of leadership earned her the nickname “Nuclear Wintour” for her decisiveness, with some reports noting her tendency to make bold editorial decisions without extensive discussion. Her distinctive bob haircut and ever-present sunglasses made her a recognisable front-row figure at fashion weeks around the world.
Beyond the magazine
The British-born editor rose to wider public fame as the inspiration behind the character Miranda Priestly in The Devil Wears Prada — both the 2003 novel and the 2006 film adaptation. While Wintour rarely commented on the portrayal, she acknowledged the attention it brought, most recently during the launch of a stage musical adaptation in London in 2024.
She told the BBC, “They [my sunglasses] help me see and they help me not see. They help me be seen and not be seen. They are a prop, I would say.”
Wintour also became synonymous with the Met Gala, the annual high-profile charity event in New York City, which she has organised for years, drawing celebrities from fashion, film, politics, and sport.
Recognition and future plans
Wintour has received numerous accolades during her career. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 2017 and became a Companion of Honour in February 2025. During the ceremony in London, she removed her sunglasses to receive the award and told King Charles III that she had no intention of retiring.
Wintour also became synonymous with the Met GalaGetty Images
In the United States, President Joe Biden awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom earlier this year before leaving office.
Despite stepping back from US Vogue, Wintour will continue to oversee several major Condé Nast titles including Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, Condé Nast Traveler, and Glamour, as part of her global leadership responsibilities.
In her remarks to staff, she described the decision as “pivotal” but confirmed she would not be leaving the company or her office. “I’ll be turning all my attention to global leadership and working with our team of brilliant editors around the world,” she said.
FILE PHOTO: A Post Office van parked outside the venue for the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry at Aldwych House on January 11, 2024 in London. (Photo: Getty Images)
THE people responsible for the Post Office Horizon scandal may not face trial until 2028, according to the senior police officer leading the investigation.
Commander Stephen Clayman has said that the process is taking longer because police are now looking at a wider group of people, not just those directly involved in decisions about the faulty Horizon computer system, reported the Telegraph.
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters were wrongly accused of theft and false accounting after problems with the Horizon software made it appear that money was missing from local Post Office branches.
Many of these sub-postmasters lost their jobs, reputations, and in some cases, their freedom. The scandal is now seen as one of the worst miscarriages of justice in British history.
Despite a court ruling that cleared many of the former sub-postmasters, hundreds are still waiting for compensation. The government has promised payouts of up to £600,000 for those whose convictions have been overturned, but delays continue.
Commander Clayman explained that the investigation, known as Operation Olympos, has grown in size and complexity. Police are now looking beyond the original group of suspects to include senior managers and others who may have played a role in the scandal.
“We are beginning to scope, looking at wider management. That will happen and is happening – it will just take time to get there,” he told the BBC. He stressed the need for the police teams to be “really meticulous and pay attention to detail”.
So far, seven people have been identified as suspects, and dozens more are considered persons of interest. The investigation is enormous, with more than 3,000 possible victims and 1.5 million documents to review.
No one will be charged until the public inquiry into the scandal has finished and police have carefully examined its findings. The inquiry is expected to provide crucial evidence about who knew what, and when.
Victims of the scandal say they are desperate for answers and accountability. Tim Brentnall, a former sub-postmaster, said it was important for the police to “do it properly”, even if it means waiting longer for justice.
David Enright, a solicitor from Howe and Co, whose firm represented most of the sub-postmasters involved in the inquiry, said many sub-postmasters have died without ever seeing those responsible held to account. He added that sub-postmasters are left wondering why there is no real urgency driving the police investigation.
A Post Office spokesperson said the company has “co-operated fully and openly with the Metropolitan Police since early 2020 to provide whatever information it needs for its investigations”.