Yudhisthira, the eldest of the Pandavas in the Indian epic The Mahabharata, lived an almost sin-free life. After the battle, with old age approaching, he, along with his brothers, set off for heaven. En route, all others shuffled off their mortal coil except the eldest brother and one dog who accompanied him on the journey. At the gates of swarga, Indra, the king of gods, told him he could enter, but he would have to leave his stray companion behind. Yudhisthira, also called Dharmaputra, refused to abandon his canine companion. It turned out to be a test. The dog was Dharma (Yama), testing Yudhisthira’s moral resolve.The dog story is fascinating because it recalls the only time in life when the eldest Pandava prince was found morally wanting. That was on the battlefield, when he told a white lie by omission to Dronacharya: “Ashwatthama hata iti… narova kunjarova.” (Ashwatthama is dead… whether man or elephant, I do not know.) The smallest of lies changed the tide of battle and, as Dronacharya laid down his arms, Dhrishtadyumna, son of Drupad and brother of Draupadi, slew the warrior teacher. Much like Yudhisthira’s white lie, the tale of the seven dogs returning home — a viral video the internet fell in love with — is only partially true. The video is not AI; it is not fake, but the narrative is.The original video had millions of views at the time of writing. For those living under a rock, the clip shows a band of canine misfits — a golden retriever, an injured German shepherd, and a tiny corgi leading the line.According to a report in CNN, the original clip is authentic. There really are seven dogs wandering down the side of a highway in northeastern Jilin province. But they are not ‘homeward bound’.What the internet saw was a story. What the camera captured was behaviour.The dogs were not escaping anything. They were not marching towards anything. They belonged to nearby villagers. The German shepherd was in heat, which is why the others had gathered and followed. In villages, dogs wander. They drift. They return.There is no screenplay in that.Which is precisely why one was written.The moment the video left its original context, it entered a different economy. Not of facts, but of feeling. A corgi walking slightly ahead becomes leadership. A dog looking back becomes care. A cluster becomes loyalty. Meaning is not derived. It is assigned.And once assigned, it spreads.The first caption does not need to be entirely wrong. It only needs to be evocative. From there, the internet does the rest. Someone adds detail. Someone else adds motive. Soon there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. The dogs have escaped danger. They are protecting each other. They are on a journey home.The video has not changed, but the story has.This is how misinformation now travels. It does not arrive as a finished lie. It accumulates as a preferred interpretation. Each retelling smooths out ambiguity, sharpens intent, and removes the parts that feel inconveniently ordinary. By the time the story stabilises, it no longer feels like an embellishment. It feels like memory.And then comes the second wave. AI posters. Trailers. Imagined reunions. The internet does not just tell the story. It begins to produce it. A few seconds of footage become a universe that never existed.At that point, correction becomes irrelevant. Truth isn’t competing with a lie, just a version of it that sounds better.And perhaps that’s the irony, as Yudhisthira understood: a statement can be true and still mislead. Truth does not reside only in words. Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and, in our age of super-fast information, truth rests on the availability heuristic of the viewer.

Mumbai: Bombay high court has directed the railways to grant Rs 80,000 compensation to a man who fell off a running train while sitting near the door.The Central Railway said no compensation could be awarded as it was a “self-inflicted injury”, which under the rules excludes compensation.The passenger, Rohidas Kumavat, was travelling by Guwahati Express train from Manmad to Jalgaon. When the train was entering Jalgaon station, he said, “due to the rush, his hands slipped” and he fell from the running train, leading to a head and shoulder injury. The train had no halt at Jalgaon.Justice Jitendra Jain, said long-distance trains have no display board about halts, “if a person boards a train and train does not have halt at the railway station where he wants to de-board, no fault can be attributed to such a passenger”.But Justice Jain said, “It is advisable to wait till the train halts at the next railway station and pay necessary fine for travelling beyond the destination for which the ticket was purchased,'” adding, “I am conscious that at that point of time, a human being may take steps to risk the life, but it is at that point of time that test of mental balance is tested. This is required in the larger interest of the dependents of the passenger. The railway authorities should introduce a public announcement system like that in Vande Bharat train, in all the trains to reduce such incidents.'”The Supreme Court said in 2010 if a person sitting or standing near the door accidentally falls down, it would not be a case of suicide, self-inflicted injury, criminal act, etc.The HC said it was possible the passenger thought the train would halt at Jalgaon and, on realising it wasn’t, an attempt to alight would naturally lead to “some injury”.Justice Jain said he could have waited for the next railway station to de-board the moving train, but at that point of time, a person loses his mental balance and in panic tries to de-board the moving train without there being any intention of “self-inflicted injury”.“No person in such a situation would do any act to impose upon him ‘self-inflicted injury’ and in some cases, it is also possible that he may go unscathed,” added the HC.

NEW DELHI: The final rites of Harish Rana, the first individual in India to be legally granted passive euthanasia, were performed in the national capital following his death at All India Institute of Medical Sciences.The family donated his corneas and heart valves, according to news agency ANI.