Perhaps better parenting would have saved the precious life. This is an inference seen on Twitter. When kids are afraid of parents, where else can they go? They grow up insecure and distorted. Obviously, little Shahavaz was afraid of telling his parents he was bitten by a dog.

Rabies is the worst dreaded disease in the world because it has the most frightening symptoms and has no cure. But it is 100% preventable by vaccine.

GHAZIABAD (UP), Sept 7: A boy has died of rabies in Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh. The 14-year-old boy was bitten by neighbour's dog a month ago but he did not tell his parents about it. A few days ago he began showing symptoms of rabies.

Only when he avoided food and began behaving abnormally that the anxious parents enquired. Shahavaz subsequently developed a fear of water and stayed indoors in a dark corner, making loud noises.

It is reported that several hospitals refused to treat him and finally he was taken to a hospital in Bulandshahar where he died on Monday.

The class 8 student Shahavaz was a resident of Charan Singh colony under the Vijay Nagar police station.

A complaint has been lodged against the dog owner by the boy’s grandfather, Matloob Ahmad. According to him, a woman in their neighbourhood was sheltering several dogs which are roaming on the street outside their home.

Twitter video, too graphic to bear

The following is a reaction to a Twitter video portraying the agony of the victim and his father: "In a heart-wrenching event, a 14-year-old boy named Shahavaz passed away from rabies on Monday, concealing the dog bite incident from his parents for over a month due to fear. This is why parents should not yell at their kids for every little thing."

Animal activists' plea to let loose the stray dogs

Meanwhile, animal activists of Delhi submitted a memorandum to Mayor Shelly Oberoi against the alleged picking up of stray dogs by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on Tuesday apparently to make the streets safe and clean for the G20 summit leaders.

All about rabies

The Mad Dog Disease, or rabies, is the most dreaded disease in the world - because it has the most frightening symptoms and has no cure. But it is 100% preventable by vaccine. The infection occurs from the bite of infected animals or their saliva. Any animal can get infected. In most cases the infection comes from dog bites.

When you are bitten by any animal, do'nt cover the wound, wash repeatedly in running water with soap. Most of the virus, if any, will go away because the virus is slow to spread and, besides, water and air are its enemies.

The 1st shot must be taken in 24 hrs of the bite and the subsequent four shots on the 3rd, 7th, 14th and 28th says. In severe bites, anti-rabies serum is prescribed as first dose.

Once infected - man or animal - it causes gradual inflammation of the brain and results in death. It claimed 59,000 lives worldwide, India reporting 20,000, every year. However, proper awareness helps.

How the virus spreads

The virus can infect any animals and they spread it to humans. There have been no confirmed instances of human-to-human transmission, says CDC. Birds are not affected. The infected animal saliva coming in contact with the victim's mouth, eyes or nose can also spread the infection. Inhaling gases from decaying carcasses of infected animals also can spread the virus.

The virus cannot sustain without a host. It becomes weak on exposure to air and water. The saliva exposed for two hours becomes harmless. It cannot survive or spread through air.

The route of the virus after infection

It replicates in the muscle around the site so that it is not recognised by the immune system. Incubation period is 2 to 8 weeks, but has rarely gone up from 4 days to 11 years. This depends on the location of the bite and the concentration of the virus in the saliva.

After replication it then attacks the nerves nearby (symptoms then begin to appear) and thereafter the central nervous system and brain and then spreads to salivary glands for transmission to other animals or humans. Last, when saliva enters the lungs, death occurs due to respiratory arrest.

Death occurs in 2 to 10 days of first symptoms.

The symptoms

The symptoms begin like any viral infection. Starts with itching at the site and impaired speech. Fluorescent Antibody Test can confirm it. But subsequent symptoms are confirmative. There will be behavioural abnormalities, extreme discomfort, fear and aggression.

Hydrophobia, photophobia, phonophobia, kinesiophobia (fear of sudden movement) and aerophobia follow. It causes foaming at the mouth, brain inflammation, paralysis, hallucinations, paranoia, delirium and coma.

The three stages of the disease progression are:

1. Prodromal Stage: First three days after symptoms begin, there will be behavioural changes. Dogs display confusion. Even aggressive dogs become calm. This is when the virus after replication in the site muscle infects nearby nerves.
2. Furious Rabies: Lasts 3-4 days. There will be running, aggression, biting anything, foaming at mouth, mad behaviour, convulsions, hydrophobia. Virus infects the brain and is spreading to salivary glands to facilitate transmission. Sometimes this stage is absent.
3. Paralytic Stage: Motor neurons are affected. Limbs, facial muscles, jaw are paralysed. Dog hides in dark corners.

The only known survivor without vaccination is 15-year old Jeanna Giese of Wisconsin. The medical procedure has come to be known as Milwaukee Protocol.

Two days earlier, in a similar incident in the area, a domestic help was bitten by a pet dog in the lift when she was going for work.

Tailpiece: Sometimes appearing to outnumnber men and women on the streets, the stray dogs are turning more and more daring with sections of anti-social elements out there to feed and protect them in order to find a window for their unfulfilled love! There is an all-pervading feeling of lack of authority.

Ankit Tiwari had told the employee that “instructions had been received from the Prime Minister’s Office to conduct an enquiry” and reopen the “already disposed of” case and asked him to appear before the ED office at Madurai on October 30, DVAC said. The doctor was allegedly threatened with arrest and told to pay a bribe of Rs 3 cr to avoid the ED probe, which was later negotiated down to Rs 50 lakh.

Tailpiece: We are made to believe RBI, CBI, ED, Judiciary as sacrosanct and all others like railways, transport, revenue, education, PWD departments are composed of us the mortals, absolutely corrupt! As if in the sacrosanct places the angels descend from the heavens to work in the night and fly away before day-break! Let's be true to ourselves, we are all cut from the same cloth.

Apart from cash, Gill had also taken three planes as bribe and two of them were leased out to Redbird Aviation Academy. With the result, flying schools compromised on safety requirements and trainers met with accidents several times.

Five people were arrested from a banquet hall in Sector 51 Noida on Thursday where they were called to hold a rave party in a trap laid by the animal rights group, PFA. They named Yadav but he was not present.

Betting through Dubai-based Mahadev Book in India is conducted through a countrywide network. Probes reveal that the online gambling is worth several millions and top politicians, officials and celebs have been beneficiaries.

TAILPIECE: Polling dates for some States are round the corner. Top politicians have begun their acrimonious debate who looted more, even as Mahadev is washing their dirty laundry in the open ghat. Come what may, one needs to seize power to amass "thy wretched pelf!" One simple question is, why else one should spend lakhs or crores to get elected! A question every Indian should ask to oneself at least once a day!

His inaction amounts to defeating the rights of the people of the State to welfare measures sought to be implemented through the Bills, the Kerala Government's petition submitted, while the State of Tamil Nadu remarked that its "Governor is acting as a political rival."

Tailpiece: Coming up back to back, the petitions in their totality seem to question the provision of Raj Bhavan, and not motives of a Governor as a person.

Hundreds of cars piled up behind the wreckage of crashes occurring one after other in backing up - continuous crashes to the rhythm of metallic clanks and bangs back to back. According to reports, some ops required 'Jaws of Life' to pull apart the mangled cars to save lives inside.

The pilots struggled with Emerson to thwart a shut-off as he reached for the T-handles (see pix). Later he admitted to police he had taken psychedelic mushrooms and had a "nervous breakdown."

Doctors reasoned how the incidence of heart attacks is spiking over time and advise the simple way to play safely is to take a break and rehydrate yourself.

But how come ten people, including children, die of cardiac arrest at Garba in 24 hours, and that at different places of Gujarat? Garba had been going on for six days, and every year it is celebrated.

The killing of a teacher in France by an Islamic radical last Friday is linked to the Israel-Hamas war in West Asia, say authorities.

Shocking news from the UK: Leading grocers have started bribing policemen with free food and drinks to persuade them to take action against shoplifters.

Shoplifting has risen by about 27 per cent in 10 major cities across the UK this year. The cost of retail crime last year was $2.15 billion. Besides, “We are seeing organised gangs threatening staff with weapons and emptying stores," Helen Dickinson, chief executive of the British Retail Consortium, said. Data shows that the police failed to respond to 73 per cent of serious retail crimes that included assault and abuse of workers, apart from shoplifting.

Isar Mohammad allegedly picked up a banana offered to Ganesh idol on Chaturthi at a makeshift temple in Delhi and consumed it.

Harris said hip-hop is “the ultimate American art form” that “shapes every aspect of American popular culture.” “Hip-hop culture is American culture,” she said in a talk at her official residence at the US Naval Observatory in Washington, D.C.

The social media had mixed reaction. There was much appreciation that she dances better than any VP in American history. But some called her "moves" as “cringe” while others did not like her pink pants - "pink pants don’t look good.” In fact, her ensembles have always been incongruous.

"Let’s see how the (Governor's) Vice-Chancellors are given salary." Mamata's extreme statements will put the Marxist Government in Kerala, which is also facing similar issues, to shame. Has she begun the countdown for a war on the streets?

It's true Mamata has come to see a conspiracy to demolish the established systems across the country, but lacks the ability to foresee what exactly is being pushed.

Brandishing a sword, Mahant Paramhans told reporters on Tuesday he himself will behead MK Stalin's son for his remarks against Sanatan Dharma in case nobody came forward to accept his offer he made in his video. Udhayanidhi reacted to the saint's Monday video, "I will speak more. I am the grandson of the artist who put his head on the rail track for Tamil Nadu."

Somanath elaborated, "I am an explorer. I explore the Moon. I explore the inner space. So it's a part of the journey of my life to explore both science and spirituality. So I visit many temples and I read many scriptures. So try to find the meaning of our existence and our journey in this cosmos. So it's a part of the culture that we are all built to explore, find out the inner self as well as outer self. So for the outer, I do science, for the inner I come to temples." (See videos)

Rao the mathematical legend had fathered the path-breaking Rao-Blackwell theorem, one of the most important theorems in mathematical statistics, at the age of 25. That brought him global fame. He is also famous for his Cramér-Rao Bound inequality theorem relating to quality of estimators in statistics which has had a profound bearing on applications of modern economics and several other diverse fields. Simply put, with the pioneering statistician computation became a tool to analyse even socio-economic challenges of modern times.

The alleged incident has received such a flash publicity that a standardised city's hugely middle class population will have second thoughts about eating outside for some time. Now everything on the table looks suspicious!

“All subjects directly connected to the people should be shifted to the State List. Particularly the subject of education. Only if this is done can cruel exams like NEET be abolished,” Stalin said. Education was moved from the State List to the Concurrent List with the 42nd Constitution Amendment made by the Central Government in 1976.

Decentralisation has been at the core of Tamil politics since the times of CN Annadurai. Stalin indicated there will be political changes in the offing.

TAILPIECE: While the Centre and the States are at loggerheads, it takes a different cognitive acumen to know that entrance tests are not the way for students' admission to courses.