This story is from April 25, 2017

NEW DELHI: All cows, their calves, oxen and bulls in the country will be tagged with a tamper-proof Unique Identification Number (UIN) to stop their smuggling, the Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday.Informing the court about the decision which was in the works since the NDA government took office in 2014, solicitor general Ranjit Kumar told a bench of Chief Justice J S Khehar and Justice D Y Chandrachud that “each animal will be tagged with a UIN with proper records of identification details — age, breed, sex, lactation, height, body colour, horn type, tail switch and special marks.”Kumar said, “The ministry of agriculture has devised a method of tamper-proof identification of cattle using polyurethane tags with a UIN sequence. It may be made mandatory for cows and their progeny throughout India.”The Centre said, “Already mass tagging of cattle for insurance purpose is being done by livestock development boards and animal husbandry departments in states.A state-level data bank may be uploaded on website to be linked with the national online database. Such cattle may be in a dairy, kanji house (shelter home) or dry dairy and a registration card has to be maintained by the owner of the cattle which may be transferred to the next owner, in case legitimate sale/transfer takes place.”These recommendations by a high-level-inter-ministerial committee has been accepted by the competent authority, the Centre told the SC, which said it would pass an order on Tuesday.The committee had said that “barren cows or bulls or low-yielding animals are sold to organised smugglers or are abandoned on the roads from where they are captured and smuggled to international borders. Such sales and abandonment of cattle is rampant and without any onus or responsibility on cattle owners”.“In order to prevent smuggling of non-milking/retired cattle, measures may be taken to create sustainable housing models, dry dairies, in every block, which could be self-sustaining by linking its operations to production of manure and bio-gas, which may be sold at a minimum support price to the government. This will reduce use of chemical fertilisers in agriculture,” it said. In an affidavit filed in the PIL by NGO “Akhil Bharat Krishi Goseva Sangh”, the Centre gave details of the causes behind large-scale cattle smuggling to Bangladesh. It said in West Bengal alone, 1,28,440 cattle were impounded by BSF accounting for 76% of seized cattle in 2016. Assam with 33,619 seized cattle figured second in the list.</s>India plans to tag millions of cows to curb smuggling

India could issue millions of cows with unique identification numbers, the latest effort to protect the sacred animals amid a spike in violence by Hindu vigilantes against farmers accused of cattle smuggling.

The government has told the Supreme Court that millions of cows will be tagged with a tamper-proof plastic tag linked to a national database in a bid to curb smuggling within India and beyond its borders.

Cows are considered sacred in Hindu-majority India, and their slaughter is a punishable offence in many states.

“Each animal will have a unique number that will have details like age, breed, sex, height, colour, horn type and special marks,” a senior officer from India’s home ministry that prepared the recommendations told AFP.

A panel from the home ministry was tasked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government to propose measures against cross-border smuggling after a petition was filed by an animal rights group in the Supreme Court.

Nearly 175,000 cattle are seized annually on the largely porous borders with Bangladesh and Nepal, according to home ministry figures, with unofficial estimates of the illegal cow trade pegged at nearly two million animals.

But the proposal comes amid a spike in violence by Hindu mobs against farmers transporting livestock, and a broader crackdown on butchers in India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh.

Vigilante squads roaming highways checking livestock trucks for the sacred animals have proliferated since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014.

These so-called “cow protection squads” beat a Muslim man to death on a highway in Rajasthan this month, accusing him of secretly taking cattle to an abattoir for illegal slaughter. The man was a dairy farmer transporting milk cows.

Three men transporting buffaloes in their truck were beaten this week in the capital New Delhi.

At least 10 Muslim men have been killed in similar incidents across the country by Hindu mobs on suspicion of eating beef or smuggling cows in the last two years.

Most Indian states have banned cow slaughter and imposed heavy penalties and jail terms on offenders, while the transportation of cattle across state lines is also barred in several jurisdictions.</s>NEW DELHI: India could issue millions of cows with unique identification numbers, the latest effort to protect the sacred animals amid a spike in violence by Hindu vigilantes against farmers accused of cattle smuggling. The government has told the Supreme Court that millions of cows will be tagged with a tamper-proof plastic tag linked to a national database in a bid to curb smuggling within India and beyond its borders. Cows are considered sacred in Hindu-majority India, and their slaughter is a punishable offense in many states. “Each animal will have a unique number that will have details like age, breed, sex, height, colour, horn type and special marks,” a senior officer from India’s home ministry that prepared the recommendations told Agence France-Presse. A panel from the home ministry was tasked by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s right-wing government to propose measures against cross-border smuggling after a petition was filed by an animal rights group in the Supreme Court. Nearly 175,000 cattle are seized annually on the largely porous borders with Bangladesh and Nepal, according to home ministry figures, with unofficial estimates of the illegal cow trade pegged at nearly two million animals.</s>New Delhi (Sputnik) — According to the recommendations of the expert panel, the Unique Identification Number of the cattle will be in the form of a polyurethane tag which will contain the details of sex, breed, age, height, color, tail, horn type and special marks on the body. Furthermore, the owner of the cattle must also maintain a registration proof which will be transferred to the next owner in case of a sale or transfer of the cattle.

The Indian government will soon issue an advisory to all state governments and Union Territories for compliance.

Cattle smuggling is rampant across the India-Bangladesh border in the states of West Bengal and Assam. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs has pointed out many security loopholes along the border. The committee had noted that despite various efforts taken by the government, the problem of cattle smuggling still persists along the India-Bangladesh border. In fact, the main cause of border firing is usually cattle smuggling.</s>“Each cow and its progeny across India should get a Unique Identification Number for tracking,” the Centre on Monday said in its report submitted to the Supreme Court regarding cow protection and smuggling of cattle across the India-Bangladesh border. The Centre told the apex court that a Committee headed by the Joint Secretary of the Home Ministry has been formed, which has given out certain recommendations.

With an aim to intensify a crackdown on cow smuggling, the Centre said in the report that each district should have a shelter home with a capacity of keeping at least 500 abandoned animals. It also stated that the onus of ensuring security of abandoned animals lies with the state government. “Responsibility of safety and care of abandoned animals is mainly of the State government,” the Centre’s report stated.

Among other recommendations, the Centre has recommended special care for cattle beyond age of milking and has also stressed on launching a scheme aimed at improving the condition of the distressed farmers.</s>In early April, a mob lynched 55-year-old dairy farmer Pehlu Khan in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. A video of the crime went viral and fanned an emotional political debate.

The killing of Mr. Khan is the sixth fatality since 2015 of a Muslim man subjected to such vigilante “justice.”

 Cow vigilantism, as assaults against those dealing commercially with the animals are called, has become a grim reality in India – with potentially poisonous effects for communal harmony.

The deadly attack against the Muslim Pehlu Khan symbolizes a low point in an escalating cultural war. The perpetrators belong to the extremist rim of the Hindu-Nationalist movement.

According to media reports, they often operate with underhand tolerance of local authorities.

Allegations of impunity undermine the victims’ faith in the impartiality of the state and the rule of law: “A lynching is a majority’s way of telling a minority population that the law cannot protect it,” writes Aatish Taseer in a scathing oped in The New York Times.

While not all vigilante attacks result in the killing of the victim, they are always a matter of life and death for the attacked.

The victims are usually members of the Muslim community — or they are Dalits, Indians who until recently used to be defamed as “untouchables.”

If you consider the cow a normal animal

Unlike India’s majority Hindu population, these people consider the cow a normal animal and beef a comparatively inexpensive source of proteins.

Muslims and Dalits play an important role in India’s booming meat industry. A little known fact: The country is the biggest exporter of beef in the world.

India’s main export markets for buffalo meat are the Middle East and South East Asia. Muslims and Dalits are an indispensable workforce in the country’s slaughter houses and the meat-processing industry.

Others earn a living transporting the animals from one part of the country to the other. Because some Indian states prohibit their slaughter, this forces the meat industry to move the cattle around.

Thus, some highways have become operating fields for cow vigilantes and truck drivers transporting the cattle are easy prey for the self- proclaimed guardians of virtue.

The lynching of Pehlu Khan stands as a stark symbol of polarization in India’s society.

India as a nation seems split between supporters of a secular order — for whom religion is secondary and what you eat (or drink) is a private matter – and those who are the followers of Hindu-Nationalism. For them, religion and cultural traditions are the be-all and end-all.

The political face of this popular movement is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. With him as their figurehead, the party aims to secure political power for years to come.

Strong results at recent regional and local elections indicate that this plan has a solid political grounding.

The focus of the prime minister and his team is mainly political. However, the commitment for the cow is proof that culture and religion take center stage in the BJP’s long-term strategy.

Critics of the BJP, whose commentaries reflect an open-minded intellectual minority in the English-language press, talk of the BJP’s stance as a dangerous form of “majoritarianism.”

Meat bans are just one, but arguably the most symbol-laden example of the illiberal outburst.

In many societies, cultural and religious traditions determine what is put on the dinner table and what not. Arguably, in no other country eating habits are as politicized as in India today.

The killing of Pehlu Khan happened just a few days after a political earthquake rocked the country when Mr. Modi’s party scored a landslide victory in the Assembly elections of Uttar Pradesh and installed a radical Hindu priest to be the state’s chief minister.

The new chief minister, Yogi Adityanath, had gained national prominence with a series of anti-Muslim diatribes. For many liberally minded Indians and members of minorities, the Yogi’s elevation is a provocation.

Once in office, the new chief minister lost little time for his campaign against the meat industry. According to media reports, of 41 meat processing and export units in Uttar Pradesh, 17 have been shut after the new government came to power.

And 30,000 workers have lost their jobs. Officially, the clampdown targeted only illegal slaughterhouses, but at least the timing of the campaign and the rhetoric surrounding it underpin the ideological thrust.

Uttar Pradesh is not alone in its campaign against the meat industry. In a lead commentary titled “Meat Under Attack,” The Times of India bemoans “worrying signs of a rise of food bigotry, cow vigilantism, harassment of legitimate meat businesses and competitive fundamentalism.”

Raman Singh, Chief Minister of Chhattisgarh, India’s tenth largest state, is on record as saying that “those who kill cows will be hanged” in his state.

In the state of Gujarat, where Mr. Modi was the Chief Minister from 2011 to 2014 and where Assembly elections are slated for later this year, the BJP government just amended its cow protection law to introduce life punishment for slaughtering cows.

Chief Minister Vijay Rupani explained the motivation for the drastic move in a series of tweets. One of them

 read: “Protection of cows is the single-most important principle towards saving the whole world from both moral and spiritual degradation.”</s>New Delhi: The Centre informed the Supreme Court on Monday that in order to tackle illegal smuggling of cows and other cattle, it had accepted the recommendation of an expert group to provide a tamper-proof unique identification number, (UIN) using poly-urethane tags, for the animals.

The Centre gave this response before a bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud that was hearing a PIL filed by Akhil Bharat Krishi Goseva Sangh seeking appropriate steps to protect cows and prevent smuggling of cattle into Bangladesh.

The petitioner claimed that there was rampant smuggling of live cattle across the border to Bangladesh, which had led to depletion of the country’s cattle wealth.

Each animal would be tagged with an UIN, with proper record of identification details (age, breed, sex, lactation, height, body colour, horn type, tail switch, etc).

Also, a state-level database may be uploaded on a website that would be linked with a national online database.

State governments bordering Bangladesh may ban livestock markets within 20 km from the international border, the Centre said.

Enforcement agencies working in areas near the India-Bangladesh border must lay emphasis on intelligence and information on smuggling of animals, so that steps could be taken to prevent cattle smuggling, the Centre added.</s>The Centre made the proposal in a report it submitted to SC on cow protection and smuggling of cattle across Indo-Bangladesh border.

New Delhi: The central government on Monday, in its report to the Supreme Court, proposed that all cows across the country should be given an Unique Identification Number for tracking.

The Centre made the proposal in a report it submitted to the apex court on cow protection and smuggling of cattle across India-Bangladesh border. The report was prepared by a committee headed by Joint Secretary, Home Ministry.

The BJP-led government, in its report, also stated that the state governments are responsible for the safety and care of abandoned animals.

“Each district should have a shelter home of capacity of at least 500 abandoned animals. Will help reduce smuggling,” the report said.

The Centre’s report has also recommended special care for cattle beyond age of milking.

The Centre has also been considering a proposal to set up ‘cow sanctuaries’ in every state, on the lines of tiger sanctuaries created for protecting the endangered animal, to end cow slaughter in the country.

"We need to stop cow slaughter, but the biggest stumbling block is who will take care of these cows. We need to make cow sanctuaries for this, and need to make arrangements for fodder also. Each state should have cow sanctuaries. Then we will be successful in stopping cow slaughter,” Minister of State for Home Hansraj Ahir had said last week.

Ahir said that a ‘Project Cow’ like ‘Project Tiger’ could be started and this would also stop farmers from selling off old cows.</s>The Indian government is contemplating providing unique identification numbers for cows in the country to prevent their trafficking, officials said.

The information was submitted by the federal government in the country’s top court, which was hearing a petition by an organisation alleging rampant smuggling of cattle across the border of Bangladesh, Xinhua reports.

According to the Vanguard newspapers, Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar told Supreme Court earlier this week that in order to tackle the illegal smuggling of cows and other cattle, it had accepted the recommendation of an expert group to provide a unique identification number (UIN) for each one. “It may be made mandatory for cows and their progeny throughout India,” the official quoted solicitor general as saying, adding that “each animal will be tagged proper records of identification details – age, breed, sex, lactation, height, body colour, horn type, tail switch and special marks.” Following the issuance of UIN, a state-level database may be uploaded on a website that would be linked with a national online database. The proposal is somewhat similar to India’s huge national identity scheme project, wherein it provided biometric identity card to its citizens. Focus on cow protection, especially by vigilante groups, has risen since 2014 – the year Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) ascended to power under the leadership of Narendra Modi. There has been a string of cow-related violence, but many state governments, particularly those ruled by the BJP, have defended the action on the grounds that the animal is considered holy by many Hindus.</s>New Delhi: As the debates over cow vigilantism are increasing in India, Central government has suggested that cows should get a 'unique identification number'.

The proposals were submiited to the Supreme Court, according to ANI.

"Each cow and its progeny across India should get a Unique Identification Number for tracking," reads the report, which highlights the issue of cow protections and smuggling of cattle across India-Bangladesh border.

Moreover, the report proposed that all the districts should have a shelter home comprising 500 abandoned animals.

The centre plans to reach out to almost 88 million cows and buffaloes this year and fix a tag on each animal. The tag costs INR8 per piece.

The tags will allow the technicians to give a specific number to each animal, which will be then saved and updated in an online data. The date will also include names of animal owners.

The government has set a budget of INR148 crore for the procurement of tags, their application and issuing health cards, according to the officials.
India is to provide every cow with a biometric dog tag, in an effort to prevent cattle smuggling.