New law to protect animals

India will soon get a new law for animal welfare in place of the existing law protecting them against cruelty.

Updated on: Aug 12, 2010, 24:27:17 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India will soon get a new law for animal welfare in place of the existing law protecting them against cruelty.

"We will have a new comprehensive law for animal welfare prescribing steep penalties for cruelty against the animals," Environment and Forest minister Jairam Ramesh said.

The existing penalty for cruelty against animals is only R50 prescribed in the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960, the only private member's bill accepted by the government in history of independent India.

In the proposed law, the environment ministry is likely to recommend measures for authorities and animal keepers to ensure their welfare.

A few such regulation have already been intended through draft notification of rules on Breeding of dogs and fishes and regulations for pet shops.

Ramesh agreed with animal rights activist and Lok Sabha member Maneka Gandhi that the existing penalty was not adequate and had not acted as deterrent against cruelty to animals.

To check this, the ministry will also be sending an advisory to state governments to prevent animal sacrifice during Dusherra festival.

"We will definitely sent an advisory asking states to ban animal sacrifice as done in some states," the minister said in Lok Sabha.

Six states in India have banned animal sacrifice during festivals.

Ramesh also brushed aside claims by RJD leader Lalu Prasad that animal festivals like those in Bihar was promoting business of animals. "It is matter of shame the way elephants are treated and traded in these festivals," Ramesh said.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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