the bitter spat that ensued over poor maintenance of animals in research laboratories saw two heads roll in the Union cabinet. The two ministers had been taking potshots at each other ever since the Pune-based National Institute of Virology (niv) was raided by the Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision of Experiments on Animals (cpcsea). Animal rights activists from around the world rallied around as the then union minister of state for statistics and programme implementation Maneka Gandhi, who also headed the Department Animal Welfare, stood her ground. And the erstwhile health minister C P Thakur's criticism of the animal seizure added fuel to the loud protests by researchers and scientists on the need to allow testing of animals for research (see frontpage: