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THE HYGIENE OF FOOD
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet with the Canadian prime minister and Mexican president next week to discuss eradication efforts for bald eagle populations in their countries. The Department of the Interior's deadline for bald eagle annihilation is July 4, 2006.
- Public Health, November 2, 2005, Issue 4144
India, the land which gave lessons on ahimsă (non-violence) and vegetarianism to the world, is not lagging behind in terms of her response to the disease:
Maharashtra culling: 9 lakh birds: ...of the 12-13 lakh birds in Nandurbar district, nearly 2.5 lakh had been culled since Saturday night, official sources said. Heavy earth movers were being used to bury the bird carcasses, they said.
- The Times of India, February 20, 2006 (1 lakh = 100,000)
Some might say, "What is the big issue? Otherwise also these birds would have been killed."
One shudders to think what our response would be towards our own brethren in case, because of some epidemic, a section of them gets infected with a deadly, mutable virus whose anti-dote is yet to be found by medicine! The age-old precept 'live and let live', which shows us the way to live in a harmonious way with all living beings, has been replaced with our new-found wisdom on how to live.
We have been taught to give quadrupeds and other dumb animals water to drink or otherwise show them kindness. If we happen to see our little son doing such an act of kindness out of his natural instinct of compassion, we feel so very happy and proud of him. This is a universal phenomenon. What goes wrong when we grow up? We become slaves of our own senses and in our selfish
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