The harvest of apathy: How many more lives before we banish the man-made disaster of stampedes?

The tragedy in Kolkata is a painful reminder that human life in our public spaces remains tragically cheap. We cannot continue to hide behind public condolences and ex-gratia handouts. Until event planners, municipal agencies, and police authorities are held criminally accountable for safety lapses before a gate collapses or a corridor bottlenecks, these mass-casualty events will continue to haunt our cultural calendar.