Terrorising helpless street dogs won't impress Narendra Modi

Sri Lanka wants to get rid of street dogs ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit - but India has an estimated 70 million stray dogs, or more. The Indian prime minister is said to be an animal lover. He recently visited Anant Ambani's animal refuge, clearly demonstrating his love of animals.

- By Anusha David

But our misguided (and clearly misinformed) government is attempting to clear our roads of community animals in an attempt to give an impression of...... what? Prosperity and development?

The 'People's President' has forgotten his election promises and proved himself to be no better than his predecessors. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi: "The progress of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated." Someone should remind our president of Mahatma's words ahead of PM Modi's visit, instead of trying to annihilate these hapless animals, most of whom have been sterilised, neutered, vaccinated and are 95 % human friendly.

Rescue Animals Sri Lanka is an organisation which has been feeding street animals for over 40 years both in Colombo and the suburbs. In our experience, we have not yet encountered a dog so hostile as to pose a danger to people. These dogs are not aggressive. On the contrary, they are timid as they are usually at the receiving end of human aggression. In our daily feeding round of over 200 dogs, we have never faced aggression from a single animal.

Doesn't the government of Sri Lanka have more urgent and pressing issues to handle than clearing the streets of dogs ahead of a foreign head of state's visit?