India prepares to execute Shabnam Ali, first woman since independence

Prison authorities in India’s Uttar Pradesh state have begun preparations to hang a female inmate who has been on death row for 11 years, in what would be the first execution of a woman since the country’s independence from the British in 1947.Shabnam Ali, 38, was sentenced to death for killing seven members of her own family in April 2008. A court found her guilty of carrying out the killings with her lover, Saleem – a high school dropout who worked as a day labourer.The two were in a…