For the past nine years, Raghvendra Singh has been driving across India wearing a crash helmet and handing out the protective gear to two-wheeler riders, often startling passers-by and at times being ridiculed.
Mr Singh, 37, from Greater Noida, a satellite city outside the capital Delhi, gives the helmets to riders who do not use them in a country notorious for traffic offences, deadly roads and the worst record for road accidents in the world.
He keeps helmets in his car, organises special camps in schools and colleges, gives them out as birthday presents, meets people at bustling markets and even stands at traffic signals, donating the headgear to those breaking the rules while riding a motorcycle.
For motorcycle riders, wearing a helmet is mandatory by law but this is widely ignored across India.
Mr Singh has so far distributed more than 56,000 helmets to riders across the country and believes he has saved 30 lives in the past decade.
For his deeds, the Samaritan has earned the nickname ‘helmet man of India’.
“My only aim is to make every Indian a smart road user,” Mr Singh told The National.
“I want everyone to inculcate the habit of wearing a helmet and save their lives.”
The father of one was an aspiring law student when the death of his best friend and roommate Krishan Kumar Thakur in an accident on a motorway in 2014 turned his life “upside-down”.
Following months of grief and shock, Mr Singh said he mustered the courage to donate his personal belongings, including books to needy students, when the idea of distributing helmets to riders hit him.
“He was just 24 years old. He was riding a motorcycle when a car hit him. He was not wearing a helmet and sustained fatal head injuries. His family spent 1.8 million rupees but couldn’t save him.”
“His death jolted me like I was being electrocuted every day. I could not stop thinking 'what if he had worn a helmet?' It was then that I realised how many people die every year in such accidents,” Mr Singh said.
People have called me after a helmet I gave them saved their life at the time of an accident. This keeps me motivated
His unusual endeavour has spread awareness but he often draws ridicule from people who mock him for wasting his money or question his intentions. But in response, Mr Singh patiently narrates his friend’s story to convince people to ride safely to avoid the same fate.
Deadly roads
Each year in India, thousands of people die in road accidents due negligent driving, faulty road design, lax traffic laws and corruption, making road accidents one of the biggest causes of unnatural death in the country.
More than 412,000 road accidents were reported in India in 2021, latest government figures show.
The negligence of not wearing a helmet resulted in the deaths of more than 52,000 people and about 100,000 were injured, the data said.
While the country has strict traffic and safety rules, people rarely comply with them.
It is a common sight to see more than two people on a motorbike or a scooter — without helmets.
Some can be seen casually carrying them on their arms while riding the vehicle and many of those who wear them do so in fear of paying hefty fines to traffic police.
Their reasons for not wearing a helmet vary from spoiling their hairstyle, becoming sweaty in hot weather and impaired hearing from having covered ears.
Leading helmet manufacturer Studds Accessories Ltd in 2020 estimated that about 80 million people who ride motorcycles in the country required helmets, as usage was only 60 per cent of 210 million registered two-wheelers.
Mr Singh blames a lack of awareness and casual attitudes towards safety for reluctance to wear a helmet.
“The biggest challenge is that there is no awareness,” he said. “Wearing a helmet should be made a habit from childhood. Parents should make sure that kids wear a helmet while on a two-wheeler so it will become a habit for them and continue it when they become adults.”
His initiative has saved many lives but the charity has not come easy.
Mr Singh has spent more than 30 million rupees ($365,540) buying helmets, organising safety camps and travelling to far-flung places.
He has even used his savings, mortgaged his wife’s jewellery worth 1.5 million rupees and is now contemplating shifting his son from an affluent school to one run by the government.
“I had to sell my house, my wife’s jewellery but I am not going to stop. This is for my friend whom I couldn’t save but I can save millions of lives.
“People still think I am mad. They laugh at me if I drive the car wearing a helmet. Some even ask if I have extra money to splurge but there are also many who have thanked me for saving their lives,” he said.
“People have called me after a helmet I gave them saved their life at the time of an accident. This keeps me motivated. As long as I live, I want to dedicate my life to this cause.”
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Uefa Champions League semi-finals, first leg
Liverpool v Roma
When: April 24, 10.45pm kick-off (UAE)
Where: Anfield, Liverpool
Live: BeIN Sports HD
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Ten tax points to be aware of in 2026
1. Domestic VAT refund amendments: request your refund within five years
If a business does not apply for the refund on time, they lose their credit.
2. E-invoicing in the UAE
Businesses should continue preparing for the implementation of e-invoicing in the UAE, with 2026 a preparation and transition period ahead of phased mandatory adoption.
3. More tax audits
Tax authorities are increasingly using data already available across multiple filings to identify audit risks.
4. More beneficial VAT and excise tax penalty regime
Tax disputes are expected to become more frequent and more structured, with clearer administrative objection and appeal processes. The UAE has adopted a new penalty regime for VAT and excise disputes, which now mirrors the penalty regime for corporate tax.
5. Greater emphasis on statutory audit
There is a greater need for the accuracy of financial statements. The International Financial Reporting Standards standards need to be strictly adhered to and, as a result, the quality of the audits will need to increase.
6. Further transfer pricing enforcement
Transfer pricing enforcement, which refers to the practice of establishing prices for internal transactions between related entities, is expected to broaden in scope. The UAE will shortly open the possibility to negotiate advance pricing agreements, or essentially rulings for transfer pricing purposes.
7. Limited time periods for audits
Recent amendments also introduce a default five-year limitation period for tax audits and assessments, subject to specific statutory exceptions. While the standard audit and assessment period is five years, this may be extended to up to 15 years in cases involving fraud or tax evasion.
8. Pillar 2 implementation
Many multinational groups will begin to feel the practical effect of the Domestic Minimum Top-Up Tax (DMTT), the UAE's implementation of the OECD’s global minimum tax under Pillar 2. While the rules apply for financial years starting on or after January 1, 2025, it is 2026 that marks the transition to an operational phase.
9. Reduced compliance obligations for imported goods and services
Businesses that apply the reverse-charge mechanism for VAT purposes in the UAE may benefit from reduced compliance obligations.
10. Substance and CbC reporting focus
Tax authorities are expected to continue strengthening the enforcement of economic substance and Country-by-Country (CbC) reporting frameworks. In the UAE, these regimes are increasingly being used as risk-assessment tools, providing tax authorities with a comprehensive view of multinational groups’ global footprints and enabling them to assess whether profits are aligned with real economic activity.
Contributed by Thomas Vanhee and Hend Rashwan, Aurifer
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Attacks on Egypt’s long rooted Copts
Egypt’s Copts belong to one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, with Mark the Evangelist credited with founding their church around 300 AD. Orthodox Christians account for the overwhelming majority of Christians in Egypt, with the rest mainly made up of Greek Orthodox, Catholics and Anglicans.
The community accounts for some 10 per cent of Egypt’s 100 million people, with the largest concentrations of Christians found in Cairo, Alexandria and the provinces of Minya and Assiut south of Cairo.
Egypt’s Christians have had a somewhat turbulent history in the Muslim majority Arab nation, with the community occasionally suffering outright persecution but generally living in peace with their Muslim compatriots. But radical Muslims who have first emerged in the 1970s have whipped up anti-Christian sentiments, something that has, in turn, led to an upsurge in attacks against their places of worship, church-linked facilities as well as their businesses and homes.
More recently, ISIS has vowed to go after the Christians, claiming responsibility for a series of attacks against churches packed with worshippers starting December 2016.
The discrimination many Christians complain about and the shift towards religious conservatism by many Egyptian Muslims over the last 50 years have forced hundreds of thousands of Christians to migrate, starting new lives in growing communities in places as far afield as Australia, Canada and the United States.
Here is a look at major attacks against Egypt's Coptic Christians in recent years:
November 2: Masked gunmen riding pickup trucks opened fire on three buses carrying pilgrims to the remote desert monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor south of Cairo, killing 7 and wounding about 20. IS claimed responsibility for the attack.
May 26, 2017: Masked militants riding in three all-terrain cars open fire on a bus carrying pilgrims on their way to the Monastery of St. Samuel the Confessor, killing 29 and wounding 22. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack.
April 2017: Twin attacks by suicide bombers hit churches in the coastal city of Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta. At least 43 people are killed and scores of worshippers injured in the Palm Sunday attack, which narrowly missed a ceremony presided over by Pope Tawadros II, spiritual leader of Egypt Orthodox Copts, in Alexandria's St. Mark's Cathedral. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attacks.
February 2017: Hundreds of Egyptian Christians flee their homes in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, fearing attacks by ISIS. The group's North Sinai affiliate had killed at least seven Coptic Christians in the restive peninsula in less than a month.
December 2016: A bombing at a chapel adjacent to Egypt's main Coptic Christian cathedral in Cairo kills 30 people and wounds dozens during Sunday Mass in one of the deadliest attacks carried out against the religious minority in recent memory. ISIS claimed responsibility.
July 2016: Pope Tawadros II says that since 2013 there were 37 sectarian attacks on Christians in Egypt, nearly one incident a month. A Muslim mob stabs to death a 27-year-old Coptic Christian man, Fam Khalaf, in the central city of Minya over a personal feud.
May 2016: A Muslim mob ransacks and torches seven Christian homes in Minya after rumours spread that a Christian man had an affair with a Muslim woman. The elderly mother of the Christian man was stripped naked and dragged through a street by the mob.
New Year's Eve 2011: A bomb explodes in a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria as worshippers leave after a midnight mass, killing more than 20 people.
