Activists of All India United Trade Union Centre staging a protest outside Crawford Hall in Mysuru on Wednesday, November 12, after a security guard was found dead.
| Photo Credit: M.A. Sriram

A dog walker in the UK tragically fell 600 feet to his death from the peak of Helvellyn, one of the Lake District’s tallest mountains, according to a report in The Telegraph. The unnamed man was reported missing by his wife after he went on a walk with his black labrador. As per the police, the wife had been tracking her husband’s progress on the phone but noticed he had not moved for a few hours, which prompted her to inform the authorities.

The search operation involved seven mountain teams, two coastguard and rescue helicopters probing the numerous routes leading to Helvellyn’s summit, where his phone last signalled. However, the atrocious weather conditions meant that a total of 68 rescue personnel from various teams including Patterdale, Keswick, Langdale Ambleside, Cockermouth, Penrith, and Kirkby Stephen had to spend two days to complete the operation.

As per Cumbria Police, the man had left a holiday home in Grasmere and gone out on his bicycle with his dog. On the first day, the search had to be called off around 1:30 am as the safety of the team members could have been compromised.

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Body recovered

On the second day, the team, using a rope system, descended a headwall down towards Red Tarn where the dog was found “safe and well” on a ledge. After the team members were lowered, the man’s body was found near the lake on the eastern side of the mountain.

“The man’s body was lowered by stretcher to the back of Red Tarn, then carried down to Greenside and transported back to Patterdale Base where it was handed over to Cumbria Police. The whole incident took 20 hours to complete over two days,” a mountain rescue spokesman told the publication.

“We would like to send our condolences to the man’s family and friends and our thanks to the various teams and search and rescue helicopter crews who assisted with the search and subsequent recovery.”

Meanwhile, the police said the death was not believed to be suspicious.

For centuries, humans have used actuarial tables to figure out how long they’re likely to live. Now artificial intelligence is taking up the task – and its answers may well be of interest to economists and money managers.

The recently released Death Clock, an AI-powered longevity app, has proved a hit with paying customers – downloaded some 125,000 times since its launch in July, according to market intelligence firm Sensor Tower.

The AI was trained on a dataset of more than 1,200 life expectancy studies with some 53 million participants. It uses information about diet, exercise, stress levels and sleep to predict a likely date of death. The results are a “pretty significant” improvement on the standard life-table expectations, says its developer, Brent Franson.

Despite its somewhat morbid tone – it displays a “fond farewell” death-day card featuring the Grim Reaper – Death Clock is catching on among people trying to live more healthily. It ranks high in the Health and Fitness category of apps. But the technology potentially has a wider range of uses.

Life expectancy is key to all kinds of financial and economic calculations, by governments, companies and individuals – from retirement income needs, to policy coverage at life insurance and pension funds, and financial planning.

In the US – which has lagged behind other developed economies in the life expectancy of its citizens in recent years – the Social Security Administration has its own table for mortality rates, which features in the annual financial report to trustees.

The government agency currently predicts that an 85-year-old man in the US has a 10% probability of dying within a year, and an average 5.6 years to live. But averages like that can be off by wide margins, says Franson, and the new algorithms can deliver a more tailored measure – a customized death clock.

That such findings are of interest in economics is demonstrated by the publication – in just the past month or so – of two papers around the topic by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

‘Harness The Benefits’

One of them, titled “On the Limits of Chronological Age,” looks at the diverse ways that the aging process affects physiological capacities. It finds that many aspects of economic behavior, like readiness to join the labor force, may not be well captured by people’s calendar age – even though that’s what policies such as statutory retirement are typically based on.

By continuing to rely on chronological age as a proxy for how well people can function, societies may end up failing to “fully harness the benefits of increasing longevity,” the researchers from Harvard and the London Business School conclude.

Another working paper examined the “value per statistical life” or VSL – a callous-sounding measure that’s used for cost-benefit analysis in areas like regulation of pollution or compensation for workplace accidents. It’s typically calculated based on compensation for workers in high-risk jobs.

The researchers behind the NBER study “The value of Statistical Life for Seniors” drew on a different dataset: the propensity of older Americans to spend money on medical services that reduce mortality risk. They found a mean VSL at age 67 of just under $2 million for people reporting their health as “excellent,” compared with $600,000 for those in “good” health.

When it comes to personal finances, better measures of life expectancy will have profound implications for people saving for retirement, according to Ryan Zabrowski, a financial planner with investment advisory firm Krilogy.

“A huge concern for elderly people, our retirees, is outliving their money,” says Zabrowski, who touches on the issue in his soon-to-be-released book, “Time Ahead”.

‘Out The Window’

Decisions such as how much to save and how fast to withdraw assets are often based on broad-brush and unreliable averages for life expectancy. AI-driven tests that can potentially reduce that uncertainty are largely unheard-of now, but likely won’t be such an unusual idea in the future.

What’s more, the AI technology itself along with advances in medicine has the potential to boost life expectancy – and with it the risk of running out of savings. Zabrowski reckons one consequence is clear: longer retirements will mean savers need higher-return investments for their old age, which will push them to allocate more stocks over fixed-income securities.

“The conventional method of measuring demand for equities will be thrown out the window,” he writes his forthcoming book. As people start expecting to live longer, there will be a “massive escalation in demand for equities.”

There are plenty of technologies already out there – like heart-rate monitors and maximal oxygen-consumption gauges from wearables – that have the potential, in tandem with new AI-powered devices, to reduce the uncertainty around personal mortality.

Of course, there’ll always be limits. On top of entirely unpredictable variables, like accidents or even pandemics, there are plenty of intangibles.

Longevity Gap

Loneliness, for instance, is often reckoned to reduce life expectancy. Gratitude may increase it. A Harvard study found that women who reported feeling the most grateful had a 9% lower risk of dying within three years than those who reported feeling the least.

Then there’s the question of inequality. For life expectancy, money matters. Multiple studies – including the work of Nobel prize-winning economist Angus Deaton on “Deaths of Despair” – have found a clear gap between rich and poor Americans.

Research published by the American Medical Association found the longevity gap between the wealthiest and poorest 1%, at age 40, was nearly 15 years for men and 10 for women.

For Death Clock users, who have to pay $40 a year to subscribe, the app suggests lifestyle changes that can hold mortality at bay – along with a second-by-second countdown of estimated time remaining.

“There’s probably not a more important date in your life than the day that you’re going to die,” Franson says.

Bob Bryar, former drummer for the rock band My Chemical Romance (MCR), was discovered dead in his Tennessee home at the age of 44, according to TMZ. During the band’s heyday, Bryar, who played with them from 2004 until 2010, helped create some of their most famous songs.

Law enforcement confirmed there were no signs of foul play at the scene, with all his possessions, including weapons and musical equipment, undisturbed, as reported by TMZ. The outlet also noted that Bryar’s body was found in a severely decomposed state. Animal Control removed two dogs from the property following the discovery. An investigation is ongoing to determine the cause of death.

As per TMZ, Animal Control came to the house after the body — which we’re told was badly decomposed — was discovered and took two dogs away. The medical examiner is investigating the cause and manner of Bryar’s death.

Bryar first met the My Chemical Romance crew while they were on tour with The Used in 2004 … and officially replaced Matt Pelissier shortly after they released their album “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.”

Animal Control came to the house after the body — which we’re told was badly decomposed — was discovered and took two dogs away. The medical examiner is investigating the cause and manner of Bryar’s death.

Bryar first met the My Chemical Romance crew while they were on tour with The Used in 2004 … and officially replaced Matt Pelissier shortly after they released their album “Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.”

“Irreparable loss,” the phrase that leapt out for this author from economist and author Bibek Debroy’s last piece of public writing published posthumously, is one of the blandest cliches casually thrown around in obituaries. Debroy, in his characteristic sardonic humorist style, punched a hole in the vacuous loftiness of the phrase. Irreparable loss to whom and why?

When everything is superlative and exaggerated, including a show of emotions, what happens to the normal-sized sentiments? When everything is already campy, how do you express the loss of something that was really grand to begin with? Like Rohit Bal’s creative convictions.

One of the pioneers of the Indian fashion industry as we know it today, Rohit Bal, is dead at 63, leaving behind a legacy of design sensibility that almost everyone admired and a persona that raised many an eyebrow. He seemed to care for neither and carried on regardless.

Bold, Just Like That

Bal’s privileged family background allowed him to wade through the waters of uncertainty in a newly emerging industry in pre-liberalisation India. He launched his label in 1986 when fashion was still not seen as a viable business in the country and luxury was seen only through the prisms of the Western outlook of consumerism and the exclusive extravagance of royalty. One of the first graduates of the National Institute of Fashion Technology, Bal was able to blend creativity and business to lead the way for at least three generations of Indian fashion designers.

What set Bal apart from most of his peers and successors was his nonchalance about the risks he was taking. He was, for example, the first Indian fashion designer to start his restaurant. Veda was opened in 2005 in Delhi’s Connaught Place. To understand the audacity of this venture, consider this: Beige Alain Ducasse by Chanel opened in Tokyo in 2004, his contemporaries Dolce and Gabbana launched their Martini Bar in Milan in 2003, and Ralph Lauren’s restaurant opened its doors in Chicago in 1999. Bal’s design icon, Giorgio Armani, was the trendsetter in this fashion-culinary crossover when he launched his first restaurant in Paris in 1998.

Couture Meets Affordability

Bal was also the first Indian fashion stalwart to start an exclusive line of childrenwear, ‘Bal Bachche’, in 2021. He betted on the emergent guilt-ridden parenting style of urban India. If you cannot give your children time, give them beautiful clothes at least. Bal’s business decisions, including collaborations where he lent his name to products, were an extension of his personality: do what you feel is the correct thing. Not everything he did worked out as expected, but that didn’t deter him from either exploring new business ways to expand his brand of fashion or tirelessly working on what made his brand unique. He wasn’t threatened by the dilution that pret brings to any couturier’s oeuvre. The grandiosity of couture easily dovetailed into Bal’s more affordable clothes without reducing them to a pastiche.   

Debroy’s last published essay examined whether obituaries mean anything at all. “There are lives my life has touched, improved, even bruised. If they get to know, they may remember, with fondness and bitterness. Such people don’t write obituaries.” In Bal’s case, the obituaries and tributes are pouring in from people who are out there on society pages. Who’s to tell whether the grief is real, manufactured, or imagined? In all the accounts, though, what shines through is Bal’s irrepressible personality. A man who gave his all to things, ideas, and people that mattered.

Fashion Over Business

For many growing up during the turn of the millennium, Bal was iconic. Even those who did not know about his lotuses and peacocks knew, or at least speculated, about his love life. As if it was any of anyone’s business. What he was doing back then for the indigenous handicraft traditions of Kashmir by catapulting them into a viable business scene through global visibility should have become everyone’s business. Bal started the trend of diaphanous anarkalis, jalabiyas, and lehengas, which required a lot of fabric. The weavers benefitted from this. 

Bal was often frustrated by how the Indian fashion scene was marred by cult worship and herd mentality. He was one of those few in the fashion business who actually cared more for fashion and less for business. He was aware that a large chunk of his “fans” were more interested in his personal life than in his designs. He was, however, conscious of the doors that his celebrity opened and acknowledged the same in many of the few interviews he gave.

Bal’s growing cynicism around the fashion world went hand in hand with his growing commitment to creativity. Despite his health issues, he wanted to do more and more—like adding layers to his unisex skirts. Only those in his innermost circle may be able to shed light on this contradiction. And that can happen only when the grandiosity of grief subsides. 

(Nishtha Gautam is a Delhi-based author and academic.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Baba Siddiqui was shot dead on Saturday evening in Mumbai. Just two days before his murder, Mr Siddiqui had made his last Instagram post. The politician, who actively used his social media handles to interact with his supporters, had posted a heartfelt tribute to the late industrialist Ratan Tata, who died on October 9 at age 86.

In his post, Mr Siddiqui described Ratan Tata’s death as the “End of an Era.”

The 66-year-old politician was shot dead by three men in Kher Nagar near his son’s office in Bandra. The gunmen fired at least six bullets, four of which struck him in the chest. He was rushed to Lilavati Hospital where he was declared dead.

Two suspects, Gurmail Baljit Singh from Haryana and Dharamraj Kashyap from Uttar Pradesh, were arrested shortly after the killing, while a third suspect remains at large. During their interrogation, the arrested men claimed they belong to Lawrence Bishnoi’s gang. Neither the cops have confirmed this nor the gang has admitted they are behind the killing. Bishnoi, who is currently imprisoned in Gujarat, has been linked to several high-profile murders and extortion cases in the recent past. 

Police are probing the murder from two angles: one focuses on the possible involvement of the Bishnoi gang – due to Mr Siddiqui’s proximity to Bollywood actor Salman Khan – who has previously received death threats from the gang. The second angle relates to a slum rehabilitation case. Sources suggest that Mr Siddiqui had received death threats just 15 days before the attack, prompting him to be placed under ‘Y’ category security cover. 

The Mumbai Police Crime Branch has formed four special teams to investigate the case, but so far, no conclusive motive has been established.

Noida:

A former Delhi Police constable has been arrested for allegedly killing a Greater Noida-based businessman to take possession of his flat. The accused, Praveen, 42, was taken into custody late Thursday, 13 days after businessman Ankush Sharma was reported missing by his family. The former constable allegedly planned the murder in a week after watching Ajay Devgn and Tabu’s crime-thriller, Drishyam, and other crime web series.

Mr Praveen first met Mr Sharma through someone. The businessman wanted to sell his flat in a Greater Noida society, said Saad Miya Khan, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Greater Noida.

“The two fixed the deal for ₹1.20 crore. Praveen gave Sharma ₹8 lakh and the transfer memorandum process was initiated between them,” Mr Khan said.

The dispute started after Ankush Sharma found that the price of the flat, in SKA society, was more than what the two parties had agreed upon.

Unhappy, Mr Praveen hatched a plan to kill Ankush Sharma. On August 9, he picked Mr Sharma up from his office, saying he would give him money for the flat.

They later reached a society’s parking where the two started drinking. When Ankush Sharma got drunk, Mr Praveen hit him with a hammer on the head before strangling him to death.

On the night of August 9, Mr Praveen hid the body on a disputed property not visited often by anyone, the senior police official said.

The victim’s family lodged a missing complaint at the Beta-2 police station.

During the investigation, the police looked into more than 100 CCTV footage and intelligence, leading to the arrest of Mr Praveen. He also informed the police where he hid the victim’s body.

The police have also recovered the hammer used in the crime and a car from the accused, Khan said.

Mr Praveen has been booked under Sections 103(1) (charges of murder), 238 (destroying evidence) and 123 (giving poison to another person) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).

The incident comes roughly two weeks after the murder of a Chhattisgarh woman was reported. The 28-year-old was allegedly killed and her body was buried by her estranged husband and paramour. According to officials, the two men also watched Drishyam, taking cues to hide the body and avoid arrest.

The incident took place on July 19 and the police arrested the two accused — Lukesh Sahu (29), the woman’s estranged husband, and Raja Ram Sahu (26) with whom she was in a relationship, an official said.

Pfizer’s gene therapy trial for Duchenne muscular dystrophy resulted in a young patient’s death. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A young patient died due to cardiac arrest after receiving Pfizer’s experimental gene therapy being tested in a mid-stage trial for a muscle-wasting disorder called Duchenne muscular dystrophy(DMD), the drugmaker told Reuters on May 7.

“A fatal serious adverse event was reported as cardiac arrest for a participant in the Phase 2 DAYLIGHT study,” a company spokesperson told Reuters in an emailed response.

The trial is testing boys two to three years of age with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), a genetic muscle wasting disorder in which most patients lack the protein dystrophin which keeps muscles intact. The disorder affects an estimated one-in-3,500 male births worldwide.

“The patient received the investigational gene therapy, fordadistrogene movaparvovec, in early 2023,” as per a statement from a community letter attributed to the drugmaker’s DMD gene therapy team and posted by a nonprofit advocacy group.

Pfizer did not immediately respond to a Reuters request seeking confirmation on the community letter attributed to the company.

All participants will be followed in the study, for five years after treatment with gene therapy, initiated in August 2022 and estimated to complete in early 2029, as per information updated by the company on a registry of clinical trials.

The company said, together with the independent external data monitoring committee, it is in the process of reviewing the data to understand the potential cause.

The gene therapy candidate is also being tested in the another late-stage DMD study, called CIFFREO, in patients in boys 4 to less than 8 years of age, as per pipeline updates on the drugmaker’s website.

There is not an impact to our expectation of having late-stage results, the company told Reuters in its email.

“We anticipate potentially beginning the primary analysis of the Phase 3 CIFFREO trial of fordadistrogene movaparvovec at the end of this month and sharing top-line results relatively soon,” it added.