Animal Activists' Vigilance Saves Cattle In Goa From Slaughter
Tuesday, 11 June 2013 10:37
Webmaster
Upon receiving a tip-off that young cattle were destined for slaughter at the Goa Meat Complex (GMC) - the official Govt slaughter house - animal welfare activists of the Govansh Raksha Abhiyaan-Goa rushed to the GMC and discovered that 26 young male calves and heifers, aged between six months to 2 years had been registered for slaughter at the GMC. They contacted AWBI member, Adv. Ms. Norma Alvares, who visited the site and ascertained that the coomplaint was bonafide. A complaint was filed withthe local police who refused to act on the complaint although they registered it, as, according to the police, the law was unclear on the minimum age for slaughter of male cattle and in any case, this was not the first time that young cattle were admitted for slaughter. A PIL was filed the High Court by the NGO. The Court immediately shut down temporarily all slaughter activity at the GMC and directed a committee to inspect the GMC and file a report within a week. The report has disclosed that the veterinary officer was remiss in his duties and used to issue certificates under pressure from traders and without proper verification. The Committee also reported that although stun gun is available, stunning of animals was not carried out for the past three years, that animals from neighbouring states are transported for slaughter - loaded on trucks beyond permissible capacity, that green chillies are put into the eyes of the cattle to make them stand for slaughter etc. Goa has a state-of-the-art slaughter house, but the officers in charge are reprehensible beyond words. On 30th April 2013, the Court permitted the GMC to resume slaughter but under stringent conditions. These include monitoring and supervision by a high-ranking committee, regulation of entry and exit of vehicles by the police, prohibition of slaughter of animals from outside the state and most importantly, that no animal below 12 years of age shall be slaughtered. The Court decreed that slaughter of bulls shall be done strictly as per the Goa Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act,1978, the Goa Animal Preservation Act, 1995 and the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. The Court also directed that the young animals be well looked after and that action be initiated against those responsible for this heinous state of affairs.
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Vice-ing up the monkeys
Tuesday, 11 June 2013 09:29
Webmaster
Sniffing dope…snorting coke…a pinch of snuff …that monkey on your back …is as common among non human animals as…boozing shrews…caterpillars on coke …wallabies on opium and fag-puffing chimps.
We’ve all heard of Tori, the orangutan that started smoking when the visitors to Taru Jurug Zoo in Indonesia, threw lit cigarettes into her pen. She was sent to live on an island 200 metres away at the zoo to kick the habit. Her mate, Didik stayed by her side to help her through the trials and tribulations of nicotine withdrawals.A decade later she finally quit smoking and gave birth to a baby.
As stories go, this is just one more. A nameless langur was brought home by a villager. It was rumoured that the mother had died. The man lugged the langur along to the local paan-and-cigarette shop and introduced him to the eclectic world of human vice.
The langur got hooked with such vehemence that he would throw a fit if he didn’t get his daily fix. The paan-wala would be roughed up for his daily haftha of ghutka and beedi.On occasion when the paan-wala stood his ground and refused, the langur would break out in anger and chase bikes causing confusion and chaos.
Counting Sparrows - A not so common obsession
Tuesday, 11 June 2013 09:27
Webmaster
India has seen a massive decline of sparrows in recent years…began the first line of an article on sparrows.Bored,I closed my laptop and stuck my head out of the car window ,squinting my eyes at the scenery outside. We were passing through a busy market place in Nagpur.”Two….one….three...” I counted out loud. ”That’s SIX sparrows in a matter of 20 minutes! Am I lucky or am I lucky!?” I asked my mother who was absorbed in her newspaper. She gave me a blank look.
Two on a balcony ledge, one on a vegetable vendor’s cart and three hopping from one vendor’s stall to the other. I rummaged in my bag for the camera I usually carried. It wasn’t there.Damn!
“Just for one day I’d like to experience the life of a vegetable vendor”, I went off on a tangent.
“Why?”, she asked, bracing herself for one of my inane conversations.
“Because I’d like to know what it takes to sit there all day and how it feels to be them”, I replied.
“Hmmm.Why not just observe and interview them instead?” she suggested sensibly.
“It wouldn’t be the same thing”, I stated.
Alternatives To Dissection
Monday, 10 June 2013 23:05
Maneka Gandhi
After the matter was taken to court, the Government has finally ruled to make dissection in schools optional which means children need no longer participate in this foolish brutality.
Exciting computer programmes, realistic or extra large models, films, slides, charts and diagrams are all effective ways to teach physiology and anatomy without destroying animals and the earth. Here is a listing of some of the alternative teaching tools and where they are easily and cheaply available.
a. Compufrog/Compurat (IBM/PC): Computer programmes of frog, rat, earthworm, cockroach and pigeon that detail the cardio-pulmonary, digestive, urinogenital, nervous, and structural systems. Available for Rs.200 each from Blue Cross of India, 1 Eldams Road, Chennai-600 018.
Learning Medicine Or Murder
Sunday, 09 June 2013 23:03
Maneka Gandhi
It is ironic that perhaps the most brutal torture and killing of animals is done in the name of saving lives. Millions of animals in India are injected, mutilated, blinded, burned and poisoned by students of medicine--the very same people that we hope to turn into caring compassionate healers.
This is the Calcutta Medical College. Established in 1835, it trains 700 students a year. It has 150 MBBS students.
The MBBS is a 4 year course--at the end of which you are qualified to practice medicine.
As part of their syllabus first year students are required to take a practical course called Amphibian Physiology. While the course is expected to teach nerve muscle physiology, students have found this course to be of very little use. There is nothing they learn that could not just as easily be taught theoretically. Nor does it have any relevance for them as doctors because out of the whole course only 18 students have opted for surgery while all others have gone in for general medicine, psychology, gynaecology and so on. If there is anything this course teaches, it is perhaps to disregard pain and suffering.
What is wrong with Indian Biomedical Research?
Saturday, 08 June 2013 23:00
Maneka Gandhi
In India 95 % of experimental research involves the use of animals. In 55 years national research institutions, universities, medical, veterinary and pharmacy colleges have killed millions of animals for research. Unfortunately now we are beginning to discover that this “research" was/is either duplication of the research already done in more advanced countries , done for obtaining a degree or for government/university publications meant for departmental promotions.
Abroad, the principle that all research depends on the care with which it is done on the laboratory animal is well known. Therefore the care, breeding and management of experimental animals using scientific principles have been insisted on. In India, though lab animals were used in research, no proper facilities based on any scientific principles exist. Though hundreds of scientists went and still go abroad yearly to look at laboratories abroad not one has bother to apply his learning within India.
Scientists or Butchers
Friday, 07 June 2013 22:56
Maneka Gandhi
Many people are under the notion that if a man is a medical “scientist” he must be doing important work for the country in the field of medicine. These so called scientists have done much to spread this propaganda because they do not want to be asked or checked on what they do. Now, after extensive investigations into their work, it turns out that for 60 years they have done nothing at all! Rs 22,000 crores have been spent on their salaries and what has been found. In many cases, the laboratories have turned out to be garages. Air conditioners have never been put so the work cannot be done as it is germ filled. The animals are in rusted cages and many die of overcrowding and disease without even being experimented on. Each animal is being taken from the road and yet the government is being billed lakhs to “buy” the animals. Each animal seen is blind, wounded, starved, with tuberculosis, paralyzed – and these are the non experimented one.
Medical Colleges and Badly Run Laboratories
Thursday, 06 June 2013 22:49
Maneka Gandhi
All Medical Colleges in this country have got extremely badly run laboratories. Two medical colleges in Chennai have just been ordered by the government to shut down their laboratories because inspectors found the most disgusting cruelties to animals. Today I will tell you about the premier medical college in India:
The Maulana Azad Medical College is supposedly going to produce doctors. Doctors are supposed to be a special breed. Not career oriented but the healers of modern society. Selfless sensitive caring people who will pay attention to the weakest and the most helpless.
How are we going to make them so? Certainly not in this Medical College where the Dean and staff are so brutal and callous that the Animal House that has hundreds of imprisoned animals kept in the most frightening conditions. Students use these animals all the time. What do they learn. Only how to be brutal. And that the weak can be mistreated and death is just a statistic.
Understanding Cats
Wednesday, 05 June 2013 22:45
Maneka Gandhi
Look at the world from the point of view of your cat. How boring we must seem to her. She talks all the time, both with her mouth and her body and yet no one in the house understands her. Sometimes she gets punished for being generous and caring things. For instance cats believe that their house humans are large cats – and because they do not see them hunting, they believe that their human owners are inefficient at catching mice. Often as a gift the cat will bring you a dead mouse or bird – and when you whack or scold her she has no idea why. Sometimes it’s easy to understand her: for instance when you are busy reading or talking or working the cat will come out of nowhere, meeow in a deep throated way and rub against you with her back arched . As soon as you get up she will run to the food area to show you that there is no food there. Even if there is food there she is telling you “I can’t eat this rubbish “or “I can’t drink this stale water”. A higher throated meeow (or a yeowl) means that your cat is restless and is now going to run around knocking things over or she needs company ( not necessarily ours) because she is lonely.
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