Jet Airways, India's second-largest airline, has assured PETA India in writing that it does not and will not transport animals to laboratories for use in experiments. In a reply to PETA's letter inquiring about Jet Airways' policy regarding shipments of animals to laboratories, Mohammad Ali El Ariss, the airlines' vice president of cargo, stated, "We would like to inform you, we refuse to carry live animals for laboratory experiments".

"Jet Airways is now among the enlightened airlines that refuse to transport dogs, cats, primates and other animals to laboratories, where they would suffer and die", says PETA India Science Policy Adviser Dr Chaitanya Koduri. "Jet Airways has set an example for the dwindling number of airlines – including Air India – that still profit from animal suffering to follow."

Numerous major airlines have full or partial policies against transporting animals for experimentation. Just among the International Air Transportation Association's list of the world's 10 largest cargo carriers, FedEx, UPS, Cathay Pacific, Korean Airlines and EVA Air prohibit any shipments of animals for experiments; Emirates, Singapore Airlines and China Airlines won't ship primates to laboratories; and Lufthansa has banned shipments of cats, dogs and primates destined for laboratories. One of the exceptions is Air India, which, despite repeated assurances to PETA that it would not transport animals for use in experiments, has backtracked on its pledge and continues to profit from the cruel trade of shipping animals to laboratories.

Please join us in urging Air India to stop transporting animals to laboratories for experimentation. Take action now!

What if aliens experimented on humans?

The cast and crew of Farah Khan's Joker, directed by Shirish Kunder and starring Akshay Kumar, Sonakshi Sinha and Chitrangda Singh, have joined PETA to encourage filmgoers to ponder this question and participate in our campaign to urge the government to ban cosmetic testing on animals. Chitrangda posed on behalf of PETA and Joker with the aliens from the film for the campaign. The ad is shot by ace photographer Atul Kasbekar, make up and hair styling by Mehak Oberoi and digital imaging by Prashish More. See what she has to say about why animals should not be used for testing cosmetics.

You can help. Take action now. 

Animals in university, medical and pharmacy school laboratories and classrooms – and those of us who care about them – have reason for celebration. Following an extensive campaign by PETA India, forward-thinking scientists and other caring people, the Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) has issued guidelines to the Medical Council of India (MCI), Pharmacy Council of India (PCI) and University Grants Commission (UGC) to completely stop dissection and experimentation on animals for training both undergraduate and post-graduate students and to use non-animal methods of teaching instead!

This victory was hard fought. In addition to writing letters to all the entities mentioned above, our efforts included gathering petition signatures from university students, progressive scientists and other caring individuals; celebrity involvement; media coverage and online action by you! 

Also key to this victory was our engagement with the scientific community. In September, the Indian National Science Academy organised a brainstorming session in which scientists from all corners of India were invited to discuss the use of animals in education and research. PETA India was the only organisation that was given a chance to be a part of the discussion panel. We shared the information on available alternatives, gave examples of how medical schools in the US and the UK phased out the use of animals in their curricula and submitted a dossier of non-animal alternatives to the president of the MCI. As a first step in the victory, the UGC website published guidelines for phasing out dissection of animals in life-sciences courses.

In January, PETA India sponsored a series of free workshops on alternatives to the use of animals in bachelor of medicine and bachelor of surgery (MBBS) programmes, which allowed us to reach nearly 500 medical teachers from 120 medical schools across India, many of whom decided to change to non-animal methods of instruction. Then, in February, we submitted a dossier of alternatives to use of animals in pharmacy education to the president of the PCI, who immediately informed us that they would begin the process of removing animals from pharmacy education and invited us to a brainstorming session with officials from the UGC and the PCI.

Finally, MoEF agreed with PETA that animal experiments should be avoided when alternatives are available, according to section 17(d) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960. These new guidelines constitute a ban to which all the schools should strictly adhere.

This is an important win, but many animals continue to suffer and die in commercial laboratories. You can help them by urging the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare to implement a complete ban on testing cosmetics on animals.

We all know that former Miss Earth and Bollywood leading lady Dia Mirza has always promoted many social causes. Now she can add "animal ally" to her résumé. This gorgeous star and animal lover is the new brand ambassador of Body Shop, a company that doesn't test on animals.

Rats, mice, guinea pigs, rabbits and other animals used in cruel animal tests are forced to swallow or inhale massive quantities of a test substance or endure the pain of having caustic chemicals applied to their sensitive eyes and skin – even though the results of animal tests are often unreliable or not applicable to humans.

Kudos to Dia for supporting cruelty-free beauty! Please join her by taking the pledge never to buy or use any product that is tested on animals

The heat of Delhi could not bring down the spirits of our passionate activists who locked themselves in metal cages to protest the imprisonment of animals at AIIMS. AIIMS is supposed to be a premier medical training institution, but it's showing how it is number one in cruelty to animals.

Laboratories in India are generally required to rehabilitate animals after three years of use, yet many of the monkeys at AIIMS have been languishing in cramped, rusty cages for up to a decade, and one monkey has been there for nearly 20 years.

After watching the undercover footage of AIIMS' Central Animal Facility, celebrities like Pamela Anderson and Celina Jaitly have also called on the institution to at least let the monkeys who have been jailed there the longest go to a real rehabilitation centre where they can climb trees and feel the grass under their feet and the warmth of the sun on their backs for the first time.

Now, it's your turn to help us free these animals. Take action here

When PETA received word from distressed students at Veterinary College–Bangalore that four calves had been killed and embalmed for anatomy lessons and that more may still be killed, we sprang into action.

Dr Manilal Valliyate, the head of PETA India Veterinary Affairs, fired off a letter to the Vice Chancellor of Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University (of which Veterinary College–Bangalore is a part) urging the university to switch to humane, non-animal training methods.

During calf-embalming exercises – which are common in schools throughout India – the animals are often killed by having their jugular vein and carotid artery cut. The calves slowly and painfully bleed to death. Chemicals are then injected into the bodies to preserve them.

Most people who pursue a veterinary career do so because they want to care for and help animals. So why are some schools still forcing students to participate in lessons that involve the killing of animals when non-animal teaching methods are readily available?

 Please join Dr Valliyate and the caring students at Veterinary College–Bangalore by speaking out against animal dissection. If you do not want to dissect and need PETA's help in encouraging your institution to implement modern methods, please contact us at Info@petaindia.org.

Pamela Anderson stole our hearts when she danced to "Dhak Dhak Karne Laga" on Bigg Boss Season 4. But now she's asking the director of AIIMS to have a heart for the animals imprisoned at its Central Animal Facility.

After watching footage from our undercover investigation showing monkeys at AIIMS languishing in barren, rusty cages; rats and monkeys exhibiting signs of severe stress; and sick and injured animals who were denied veterinary care, Pamela fired off a letter to AIIMS' director urging him to retire the aging monkeys to a sanctuary and switch to modern, humane non-animal research and training methods.

"It broke my heart to see the suffering that is documented in the enclosed video", writes Anderson. "But the animals suffering behind closed doors at AIIMS must endure this nightmare every day. I was shocked to see that rabbits are forced to live in wire-floored cages; the sharp wire digs into their sensitive footpads and can cause their feet to become stuck."

Please join Pam in taking action for animals suffering at AIIMS. They are counting on you!

"2287" is not a mere number. It is the "name" given to a monkey who has been confined to a cramped, barren, rusty cage at All India Institute of Medical Sciences' (AIIMS) Central Animal Facility for nearly two decades. Monkeys at AIIMS are not even granted the respect of being given a name – numbers are tattooed on their chests instead.

In this Dilwalon ki Dilli, no one wants to be alone on Valentine's Day – and #2287 is no exception. Lonely and miserable, she has been deprived of the ability to engage in activities that are natural and important to her, such as socialising, climbing trees and foraging for food.

This Valentine's Day, ask the director of AIIMS to have a heart for #2287 and retire her and other monkeys imprisoned at AIIMS to a sanctuary where they can spend the rest of their days (and every Valentine's Day to come) in a natural setting with other monkeys.

We are thrilled to announce that after more than 40,000 supporters of PETA and its affiliates around the world sent e-mails to the world's largest tea maker, Unilever (and its Indian subsidiary Hindustan Unilever Ltd), urging the company to stop testing tea on animals, Unilever agreed to halt all such tests. Unilever sells Lipton and Brooke Bond brand teas through Hindustan Unilever in India. In a message just posted on its website, the company states, "Unilever is committing to no animal testing for our tea and tea-based beverages, with immediate effect".

Thanks to everyone who responded to our online action alert, no more piglets will be infected with E. coli toxin and have their intestines cut apart while they are still alive, no more rats will have holes cut into their intestines and be fed tea ingredients through a tube in their throats, mice won't be suffocated or have their necks broken, rabbits' heads won't be cut off and other cruel tests that involved tormenting and killing animals simply to study the health effects of tea products and ingredients will no longer take place.

Not one of the experiments that the company conducted was legally required for beverage makers, and regulators have stated that animal tests are not required to prove a health claim about a product.

With this victory, the suffering of animals for Lipton and Brooke Bond teas ends. Lipton joins many other tea and beverage companies – including Indian tea giant Tata, the world's number one green-tea maker, ITO EN, and Typhoo (which is owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group) – in being cruelty-free.