Tharoor’s latest—why not a no-meat day?

The government is faced with an unusual request from its own member of Parliament — Shashi Tharoor. He wants the government to declare January 12 as National No Meat Day. It has created a debate within the government on whether it should make such a pronouncement or not.

Updated on: Oct 28, 2011, 24:00:20 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government is faced with an unusual request from its own member of Parliament — Shashi Tharoor. He wants the government to declare January 12 as National No Meat Day. It has created a debate within the government on whether it should make such a pronouncement or not.

Tharoor’s claim that being vegetarian can help fight against climate change has arguments both in favour and against it.

Those in favour say that every year animal agriculture produces more than 100 million tonnes of methane, which has 21 times more potential of causing global warming than carbon dioxide. Meat consumption has increased by over 50% in the last few decades, making it the highest human related cause for climate change.
But, the argument against turning vegetarian is that it would create an imbalance between human and animal presence leading to more methane emission than before. A World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report in 2010 said that meat substitutes are highly processed, often requiring large amounts of energy to produce, leading to higher emission of global warming causes gases.

Tharoor, who was former minister of state for external affairs, believes that turning vegetarian like him is good for environment and has urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to declare January 12 as No Meat Day to promote vegetarianism.

Environment ministry is not adverse to declaring no meat day for two reasons. Firstly, it can showcase India’s positive approach towards climate change and secondly, it promotes ministry’s objective of promoting animal welfare.

But, the bigger question will have to be answered by agriculture ministry, which promotes poultry in a big way.

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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