As we celebrate PETA India’s first ten years and many lifesaving accomplishments, we’re also reflecting on the many hard-hitting undercover investigations that have helped to open people’s eyes—and hearts—to animal suffering. All animals, from bulls and elephants to mice and fish, can feel pain and suffer when treated unkindly. By exposing cruelty in the food, fashion, entertainment, and experimentation industries, we are reshaping the way the country views animals.India is the third largest commercial fish killing nation in the world. Last year, PETA India launched a groundbreaking investigation of the fishing industry in India, and showed everyone just how fish suffer when they’re dragged from the ocean depths. They’re impaled, crushed, suffocated and gutted, all while they’re still conscious. Other sea animals, including dolphins, turtles, and whales, often get caught in commercial fishing nets, along with the fish, and their battered bodies are thrown overboard, where they slowly bleed to death or fall prey to swarming birds and other animals.Farmed fish fare no better. They live in polluted, toxic water, just as sea-faring fish, and the cramped, filthy ponds give them skin infections. On one farm, PETA India’s investigators couldn’t even see the fish because the water was full of faeces, drugged feed and animal corpses.

You can help these smart, sensitive animals, who can use tools and recognize their “shoal mates,” just by pledging never to eat fish. And spread the word, “fish are friends, not food!”

Mother Earth is in trouble and what are some of us doing to save the planet besides using a different kind of light bulb? On Earth Day, a PETA supporter showered on the pavement in Mumbai outside the Flora fountain to make the point that it takes 20,000 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of meat, whereas it takes just 200 liters of water to produce 1 kilogram of wheat. In other words, meat is not green! Did you also know that India is the fifth largest emitter of greenhouse gasses? UN Scientists have determined that raising animals for food generates more greenhouses-gas emissions than all the cars, trains, and planes in the world combined, and a recent report in the World Watch Magazine stated that livestock and their by-products account for at least 32.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year, or 51 percent of annual worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Raising animals for meat, eggs and dairy also pollutes the water and the air and requires massive amounts of energy and land. Going vegan is clearly the best and easiest thing any of us can do as individuals to save the planet. Let’s not forget to be environmentalists the moment we sit down to eat. Let’s make everyday Earth Day by going vegan. Go vegan to save the Earth!

On behalf of PETA India, Celina Jaitley is urging Byculla Zoo authorities to transfer Laxmi and Anarkali, two elephants at the zoo, to a sanctuary, but the zoo seems to want to keep them to make ‘laxmi’. Imagine for a moment being sent to prison even though you have committed no crime. Doesn't the thought of that make your blood boil? Elephants are social living beings, and keeping them isolated and shackled frustrates them.

Jaitley is assisting PETA with our campaign to help elephants in captivity. Celina says,

Photo by Dharmesh Solanki, PETA India

The fleeting pleasure that people experience while visiting zoos comes at the expense of these animals, which is why we have repeatedly urged zoo officials and government authorities to transfer the elephants to better homes. But now it's time for you to take action. Please pledge never to visit the zoo. If enough people boycott zoos, animals will be left alone in their natural habitat.

Zoos are not homes – they are pitiful prisons. Help Celina and PETA India free Laxmi and Anarkali from the Byculla Zoo by not going to zoos ever again.

 

Shahid Kapoor is a youth icon and an actor adored by women (and men) all around the globe. Every year PETA Asia picks the hottest compassionate vegetarian celebrity in its Sexiest Vegetarian Celebrity poll, and last year, this heartthrob won the title!

PETA recently shot an ad with this veggie superstar to promote vegetarianism which will be released later in the year. He wants everyone to know that his body is fueled by veggies and that surely keeps him fit. I surely want a body like him.

After the photo shoot, Shahid spoke to the media about how he made a switch towards a vegetarian diet ten years back after learning about the suffering that animals endure when being raised for food. In India, animals used for meat and eggs suffer immensely. Chickens are kept in cages hardly larger than the size of their own bodies. They are then crammed into baskets or sacks, tied upside down in a bunch or thrown into vehicles on their way to slaughter. Cows, buffaloes, sheep and other animals are crammed onto vehicles for slaughter in such high numbers, many suffocate, their bones break or they die en route. At the slaughterhouse, animals are killed with dull knives in full view of each other.

No wonder Shahid chooses not to eat eggs either and believes going veg is the right lifestyle for him. He says that according to the laws of karma, you are what you eat, and when animals suffer for our food, it comes back to us.Shahid surely is a star adored by many people--and it’s safe to say that after his work with PETA, animals will fall in love with him as well. Check back soon to see the final ad campaign once it’s released!

Like helping animals? Like hanging out with other cool people? Of course you do! So why not combine the two?

That is just what a group of young animal advocates did recently in Chennai – they threw themselves a letter-writing party! They wrote 40 letters and postcards to decision-makers on a variety of important issues, including:

• Asking Mr Jairam Ramesh, Minister of Environment and Forests, to put a stop to animal dissections in Indian universities.

• Calling on the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to ban both cosmetics testing on animals in India and the marketing of cosmetics which were tested on animals in other countries.

• Urging the Tamil Nadu State Election Commission to discourage local political parties and leaders from using animals in their rallies and campaigns.

• Imploring All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to rehabilitate the monkeys, rabbits, sheep and ever-multiplying guinea pigs and rats many believed to be sick and confined to small cages – at its Central Animal Facility.

This is a brilliant way to have fun while encouraging each other, sharing ideas, and helping animals. So a great big ‘Good Job!’ to Niranjan, Abhinav, Tanmay, Ridhi, Rini, Kavi, Dhaval, Seshant, Keerthi, Sriram and Siddharth! As for the rest of you – what are you waiting for? All you need to do to get the party started is gather some paper, pens, and your peers!