Gas station explodes in Rome, injuring at least nine first responders
The explosion was heard across the Italian capital shortly after 8 a.m., sending up a huge cloud of dark smoke and fire visible from several areas of the city.
Elisabetta Accardo, a spokesperson for the Roman police, said that eight police officers were injured after arriving for rescue operations.
'There were a few chain explosions after the first one,' Accardo told Italian state broadcaster RAI. 'All the policemen injured suffered burns, but they are not in danger of life.'
Fire department spokesperson Luca Cari said one firefighter was also injured in the explosion, but 'not seriously.' Ten teams were at work on the site, he added.
Police said they were checking the whole surrounding area for people who were injured or trapped in nearby buildings.
There was no immediate indication of the cause of the explosion.
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Scroll.in
7 hours ago
- Scroll.in
Prada's Kolhapuri sandal copies show that law alone can't protect India's cultural capital
Earlier this month, Italian fashion house Prada sparked an uproar in India when its newest collection at the Milan Fashion Week featured open-toe leather sandals that strongly resembled the iconic Kolhapuri chappal. Priced at Rs 1.2 lakh per pair, nearly 300 times their value in Kolhapur, these sandals were showcased by Prada without any mention of their cultural origins or the communities in the subcontinent that have sustained the industry around them. Since 2019, the Kolhapuri chappal has had geographical indication status – meaning that it is protected by an intellectual property rights regime that acknowledges that goods originating from a specific region possess a reputation and distinctive qualities or characteristics inherently linked to that location. A GI tag is a legal stamp that protects the cultural and economic identity of products from a certain place, such as champagne from France or Darjeeling tea from India. The Prada incident put the focus on the limitations of India's GI regime in enforcing the protection of its heritage when it was co-opted on the global stage. For decades, India's intellectual property trajectory in the cultural sector has been one of seeking recognition: mapping traditional knowledge systems, celebrating heritage crafts and filing for geographical indications with the hope that a legal tag would be enough to protect them. But recognition is not the same as enforcement. GI status legally identifies a product as originating from a specific region, and grants exclusive rights to local artisans, manufacturers, or registered associations in that region to use its name. It stops others from misusing the region-based name and lets authentic producers benefit from both cultural identity and direct income. The backlash in India against Prada's sandals accused the firm of cultural appropriation and theft of intellectual property. Yet, legally, the anger went nowhere. A public interest litigation before the Bombay High Court seeking an injunction against Prada was dismissed, largely on procedural grounds: the petitioners were not the registered GI proprietors and public interest was not adequately demonstrated. This signals the limitations of enforcing India's GI regime. Until now, GI registration has been celebrated as an end in itself, as a badge of honour that marks cultural uniqueness. But what happens when that uniqueness is exploited abroad, stripped of context and sold back to the world as high fashion? The case of the Kolhapuri chappal may be the first real test of how GI protection needs to evolve beyond domestic pride. GI tags In India, GIs are governed by the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, 1999, which came into force in 2003 following India's commitments under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement. GI protection allows local artisans, manufacturers, and registered associations to register traditional products and prevent others from using the GI name without authorisation. Since the inception of the GI regime, over 400 Indian products have been registered: from Banarasi and Pochampally ikat saris and Mysore silk, to Nagaland's Naga mircha chilli, Kullu shawls and Aranmula Kannadi metal mirrors from Kerala. These registrations confer exclusive rights to artisans, manufacturers, artisans and officially recognised producer associations based in those regions to produce, market, and financially benefit from the GI-labelled goods. For instance, Basmati rice, one of India's leading GI products, generated export earnings of approximately Rs 38,000 crore in the financial year 2022-'23, showcasing the immense commercial potential of GI recognition. Core flaw Under the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registration and Protection) Act, enforcement hinges on the use of the GI name itself or instances of consumer confusion. Prada did neither. It did not market its sandals as Kolhapuris nor did it mislead its customer base about the product's origin. The company sidestepped the law's textual boundaries, while arguably trampling on its spirit. That highlights a core flaw in India's GI law: it was not framed to address subtle, stylised forms of imitation in transnational fashion circuits. This is not the first time Indian culture has been borrowed without acknowledgement. In 2018, for instance, Indian design studio People Tree said French fashion house Christian Dior had copied one of its prints. Similarly, H&M's 'Wanderlust' collection, created in collaboration with Indian designer Sabyasachi Mukherjee, was claimed to have used GI-tagged hand-block prints without involving or compensating the artisan communities responsible for them. But two elements make the Kolhapuri chappal episode stand out. First, it comes at a time when Indian policymakers are actively promoting GIs as tools of rural empowerment and soft power diplomacy. Second, its unusual aftermath: Prada, after facing public backlash, agreed to a collaborative, artisan-driven 'Made in India' collection. What the law could not compel, public pressure did. This unintended consequence, where a luxury brand voluntarily enters into a fair-trade collaboration, is worth reflecting on. It suggests that while legal enforcement may have failed, ethical compliance may still be a possibility. However, such goodwill cannot be the cornerstone of a country's intellectual property regime. There is an urgent need to reimagine GI protection through the lens of global commerce. This could include bilateral agreements that create binding obligations on GI, mandatory disclosure of origin clauses in fashion exports and soft law instruments under the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and or the World Intellectual Property Organization that link heritage usage to benefit-sharing norms. The Prada controversy exposes another persistent weakness in India's GI law: the limited capacity of registered proprietors to monitor and act. In this case, the two state-run corporations that jointly hold the GI – Maharashtra's Sant Rohidas Leather Industries & Charmakar Development Corporation Ltd and Karnataka's Dr Babu Jagjivan Ram Leather Industries Development Corporation Ltd – were silent spectators. It took the Maharashtra Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Agriculture, a trade body with no legal ownership of the GI tag, to intervene and negotiate with Prada. This asymmetry in enforcement resources, where smaller artisan groups rely on third parties or media outrage to defend their rights, must be corrected if India is serious about giving its GIs teeth. But perhaps the most valuable lesson is this: the future of GI protection cannot lie in legalese alone. It will require a cultural and strategic repositioning of India's artisan economy, not just as heritage to be preserved, but as intellectual capital to be globally commercialised on fair terms. Prada's eventual collaboration may offer a working model. It came too late to be legally meaningful but early enough to change the narrative. It brought the artisan into the boardroom. The challenge now is to ensure that this becomes the norm, not the exception. India's GI regime must stop being just about recognition and start being about clear enforcement of rights. Debargha Roy is a practising advocate and managing trustee at Project Saathi. Tejaswini Kaushal is a researcher at Project Saathi and writes on IP. Views are personal.
Hindustan Times
17 hours ago
- Hindustan Times
Anne Burrell suicide: Officials confirm cause of death; mention at least 4 drugs in report
Anne Burrell, beloved Food Network chef and TV personality, died by suicide, officials confirmed in a report on Thursday. People cited sources to report that the New York City medical examiner's office noted that the 55-year-old took a combination of at least four drugs before she was declared dead on June 17. Anne Burrell died by suicide, the New York medical examiner's office confirmed on Thursday(Andy Kropa/Invision/AP) According to the publication, Burrell's cause of death is specified as 'acute intoxication due to the combined effects of diphenhydramine, ethanol, cetirizine, and amphetamine'. Under the manner of death section, the examiner's office confirmed - 'suicide'. At the moment, Burrell's family has not reacted to the cause of death report. This comes weeks after police were called to Burrell's address before 8 AM on June 17. Officers found an unresponsive woman who was soon pronounced dead. Burrell was on TV screens as recently as April, making chicken Milanese cutlets topped with escarole salad in one of her many appearances on NBC's 'Today' show. She faced off against other top chefs on the Food Network's 'House of Knives' earlier in the spring. 'Anne was a remarkable person and culinary talent — teaching, competing and always sharing the importance of food in her life and the joy that a delicious meal can bring,' the network said in a statement. Burrell was born Sept. 21, 1969, in the central New York town of Cazenovia, where her parents ran a flower store. She earned an English and communications degree from Canisius University and went on to a job as a headhunter but hated it, she said in a 2008 interview with The Post-Standard of Syracuse. Having always loved cooking, she soon enrolled in the Culinary Institute of America, for which she later taught. She graduated in 1996, spent a year at an Italian culinary school and then worked in upscale New York City restaurants for a time. She was survived by her husband, Stuart Claxton, whom she married in 2021, and his son, her mother and her two siblings. 'Anne's light radiated far beyond those she knew, touching millions across the world,' the family said in a statement released by the Food Network. (With AP inputs)
Time of India
a day ago
- Time of India
‘Baron' who ran ‘Westarctica embassy' in Ghaziabad for 9 years held
1 2 Ghaziabad: A man who plucked out from obscurity names of micronations like Westarctica and Ladonia and declared himself their ambassador was arrested on Wednesday by the Noida unit of UP's special task force from his 'embassy' in Ghaziabad. Harshvardhan Jain, whose portfolio of gobbledegook included calling himself a diplomat from Seborga and Paulovia apparently found takers for this tripe, enabling the 47-year-old to perpetuate a fraud that went on for nine years. He bestowed on himself the titles of 'Honorary Consul Baron Westarctica', engraved on the number plate of a Merc found parked on the premises, and 'Honorary Consigliere Principato Di Seborga', which adorned the blue diplomatic plate of a Hyundai Sonata. Fake country stamps, passports, four cars with diplomatic registration plates, and foreign currency were recovered from the lavish Kavi Nagar bungalow that Jain rented six months ago for Rs 1.8 lakh per month. Police also found two forged press cards, indicating the 'diplomat' and 'baron' may also have pretended to be a journalist. Jain, according to police, was born into a wealthy family and studied MBA at a London college. The 'embassy' was allegedly the front of a hawala racket he ran. You Can Also Check: Noida AQI | Weather in Noida | Bank Holidays in Noida | Public Holidays in Noida Special superintendent of police (STF) Sushil Ghule said central agencies were on the lookout for Jain, but it was an anonymous tipoff that took the STF to bungalow number KB-45 in Kavi Nagar at 10pm on Tuesday. Over the next seven hours — the raid continued till 3pm on Wednesday — the team scanned and seized volumes of documents, allegedly linked to an elaborate job scam and the hawala money network. "Jain had morphed photos to show him in the company of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and former President APJ Abdul Kalam. He had padded the house with flags of foreign nations. The cars parked in front embellished the appearance of the house as an important compound." SP (Noida STF) Raj Kumar Mishra told TOI that during interrogation, Jain claimed that he was appointed an adviser to the 'principality of Seborga', which is a self-proclaimed principality in the Italian riviera, in 2012. He also claimed that in 2016, the Grand Duchy of Westarctica — another micronation in western Antarctica — appointed him honorary ambassador. Jain made similar claims for Ladonia, a micronation in Sweden, and Paulovia, which seems to be a name cooked up by him. Micronations, to be clear, are not sovereign countries and aren't recognised entities. Micronations are distinct from microstates, such as Liechtenstein or Vatican City, whose sovereignty over extremely small territories and populations is internationally recognised. According to investigators, Jain started to operate his 'embassy' from his parents' property — bungalow number KB-35 — in the same colony in 2016. "For nine years, he operated out of this house before shifting to KB-45, which is owned by a person called Sushil Kumar," Mishra said, adding cops were yet to ascertain how many people Jain may have cheated during this period and what his exact modus operandi was. "He used the fake designations to draw people into conversations and gradually offered them jobs in foreign companies. He would later charge them by offering help to open overseas bank accounts or purchase properties. We are investigating his connections with gangsters abroad," Mishra added. The STF indicated he had contacts abroad, but it's yet to be ascertained how many people, if he indeed did, send abroad. The STF found in his possession 18 fake diplomatic number plates, 12 forged diplomatic passports from these micronations, fake documents carrying the seal of the foreign ministry, two forged PAN cards and 34 rubber stamps of various countries and organisations. "We also found Rs 44 lakh in cash, assorted foreign currencies, and 12 imported luxury watches," Ghule said. An FIR has been registered against Jain at Kavi Nagar police station under BNS Sections 318 (4) (cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property), 336 (3) (forgery for purpose of cheating), 338 (forgery of valuable security, will, etc.) and 340 (2) (using as genuine a forged document or electronic record). He was sent to police custody by a local court.
