During a short visit to Australia last month, I witnessed a heated debate between the Defence Department officials and animal activists.

If you thought Chandigarh was all about greens, here's a peek into its "wild, red' side.

People living in West Bengal are least tolerant towards animals and Punjabis happen to be among the friendliest as far as their behaviour towards animals is concerned.

The two trained elephants which were brought from Chittoor for operation Gaj for chasing wild tuskers to Orissa are starving and the forest department officials planned to shift them to Indira Gandhi

A full-grown leopard, which came from the Ripu Reserve Forest to No. 2 Panbai village under Kachugaon police outpost could not be saved despite the efforts of Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel, forest guards and local people to catch it alive. In an interview to The Sentinel, DFO, Kachugaon, RN Boro said the full-grown leopard came to the Panbari area on Thursday morning. The leopard turned furious as it was chased by the people of the area, Boro said, adding that forest guards rushed to the spot immediately. The department made all efforts to catch the leopard alive and asked for tranquillizers from the Manas National Park (MNP) authority. He said the SSB personnel were also pressed into the rescue operation. Boro expressed that the Ripu Reserve Forest is the home for various endangered species but there is no tranquillizer with the forest department officials to catch the wild animals when they appear near human habitation. The tranquillizer, which was brought from Manas National Park to rescue the leopard had a only one bullet. There were chances that if the bullet missed the target, the shooter might have to face the wrath of the wild animal, Boro said adding, an SSB jawan who took the initiative to shoot from a close range was lucky enough as the leopard jumped over him and the other jawans chased it with lathis. The DFO said at least three persons of the locality were injured by the leopard. The forest department, finding it difficult to tranquillize it, rounded up the area with SSB personnel and local people and started to fire crackers to bring out the leopard from its hideout but it did not do so. Till the filing of the report, the forest guards were still guarding the area to check if it was still there. RN Boro told The Sentinel that the leopard never stayed at a same place but roamed around for food. He said the leopard might have gone back to the jungle at night as they did not get any evidence of its presence at Panbari during the check. On the other hand, the local people, when contacted by The Sentinel, said they heard three rounds of gunshots. Sources also added that some armed youths came after sunset and they killed the leopard and took it away somewhere. The sources, on condition of anonymity revealed that the leopard was a female and its organs were cut away by the miscreants as the people in remote areas believe that it stops unprecedented bleeding of women during childbirth. This kind of medical treatment has been prevalent throughout the rural areas due to the presence of witch-doctors and quacks, who allegedly claim to have the cures for all ailments. DFO (Social Forest) Sonali Ghosh was also present along with Rangers, Deputy Rangers on Thursday. It may be mentioned here that in 2006, another leopard was killed under the same range and even on earlier occasions, the villagers have killed two leopards.

The Gujarat Government after succeeding in getting favourable verdict from the Supreme Court on the ban of cow slaughter in the state earlier has got a further boost with the apex court also upholding its notification banning slaughter of bulls and bullocks and sale of beef. A Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and P Sathasivam upheld the December 11, 1989 notification of the Gujarat Government banning the slaughter of bulls, bullocks and other animals and sale of their meat. As a result, the Bench dismissed an appeal of Abdulsattar Yousufbhai Qureshi and other butchers challenging the notification, issued by the state government under the Gujarat Essential Commodities and Cattle (Control) Act, 1958. The Bench passed the verdict in consonance with the apex court's 2005 verdict upholding the ban on slaughter of cows. The butchers had filed an appeal in the apex court after the Gujarat High Court had dismissed their petition on the ground that the government had imposed "reasonable restriction' for drastically reducing the slaughter of bulls and bullocks and trade of their meat. In the 2005 verdict, the apex court had said that since there was adequate availability of the cattle feed resources in the state, the question of striking down the "total ban' on the slaughter of even old cattle for scarcity of fodder would not arise and there was no reason for "disrupting' it. "Above being the position, this appeal is without merit and deserves dismissal which we direct,' the Bench in its fresh judgement said.

Walk down the narrow bylanes of Shahpur in the Walled City and you might hear the chatter of lovebirds. If you show some interest, a young man will tell you

Sudheendra Aithal of Udupi district was known as an animal lover. He was so fond of wild life that he had almost turned his house into a mini zoo. His dual face was exposed when the CID/Forest Cell of Karnataka police raided his house in October last year. "We were just shocked to see the rare animals he had caged in his house. It was a mini zoo where he had altogether 51 animals and birds, which according to the law cannot be caged or made pets,' says the IGP of CID, Forest, KSN Chikkerur.

A Dutch project management firm withdrew from the development of a new science park in the southern Netherlands saying its managers were consistently intimidated by animal rights protesters.

Though the ban on the import of Chinese shuttlecocks due to the bird flu scare might have resulted in the cancellation of the National Badminton Championship, scheduled to be held in Goa, it has proved a blessing for the indigenous shuttlecock units, which were on the verge of closure due to competition from Chinese shuttlecocks. The shuttlecock units of the city, which had migrated from Sialkot after independence, had provided employment to a lot of families since then and the highly skilled labour involved in shuttlecock manufacturing in the city earned fame.