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India, homeland of the sacred cow has become the world's leading
beef exporter. International community is shocked that a nation in
which cow slaughter is officially prohibited and is an utter
anathema to the majority of the population, will overtake three
icons of cattle ranching (Australia, Brazil and US) and become the
world's leading beef exporter. Present Indian government came to
power 10 years ago. After assuming office, their first move was to
modernize existing slaughterhouses and grant licenses for
establishing new slaughterhouses. A lucrative subsidy ranging from
50-90% was offered to lure entrepreneurs in this area. Contacts
were established with slaughterhouse machinery suppliers in Europe
and China. The whole government machinery was mobilized to usher in
a new era of increased meat consumption and export. It was a
significant policy shift in last several centuries. Even the
British in their 200 years of rule could not accomplish what the
present Indian government has accomplished in just 10 years. This
team has fulfilled the dream of India's founders who can finally
rest in peace now. It was their cherished desire to see Indians
eat, drink and have sex like Westerners. These founders must be
reveling in their graves, having fulfilled their long pending
dreams. After independence, it took Indian leaders 65 long years to
accomplish this 'feat'. But this accomplishment has come with a big
price tag. Soil of India, deprived of farmyard manure, is in
revolt. Scorched with chemicals, topsoil is getting destroyed and
land is turning into a desert. Indian agriculture is a fragile
system which has withstood the test of time. India supports
approximately 16% of the world's human population and 20% of the
world's livestock population on merely 2.5% of the world's
geographical area. Meddling in this sensitive area is having
disastrous impact on the nation's food security. Consequently,
there is a genocide in progress in India. The food supply of 1.2
billion people is being systematically destroyed. Gradual handing
over of food sector to unscrupulous corporations is a bold step in
that direction. Soil is the Earth's fragile skin that anchors all
life. Soil is the most important national asset and its
conservation deserves the highest national priority. Any
civilization is founded on topsoil and soil erosion destroys it.
Policy makers are blissfully unaware of this fact and national
policies are being made in boardrooms as parliament takes a
backseat.
How egocentric of humans to think we are the only beings who can
think, feel, bond with others, etc. As the "dominating" species, we
have a responsibility to care for and protect the entire planet,
including the other animals. Those who describe animals as not
having any thoughts or feelings come closer to the description
they're trying to describe. Its enormously puzzling that extreme
suffering only gets widely questioned if it is the suffering of
members of the human species. It is extraordinary how many people
just accept the appalling treatment of such a vast number of
animals. Animals have souls and we have a duty to respect them
Anything less is to deny one's humanity and one's own soul Numerous
stories outlined in this book prove this point, beyond the shadow
of a doubt.
As the title suggests, this book deals with the subject of cows.
Normally we see cows as docile, dumb creatures, grazing
nonchalantly in some far distance. But there is a whole lot more
going on in their lives. Numerous stories from around the World are
presented herein to substantiate this point. Where does all the
war, racism, terrorism, violence, and cruelty that's so endemic to
human civilization come from? Why do humans exploit and massacre
each other so regularly? Why is our species so violence-prone? To
answer these questions we would do well to think about our
exploitation and slaughter of animals and its effect on human
civilization.
This book deals with the internal lives of the cows and contains
true stories from around the world. Cow is a very sober animal and
does not wag its tail as often as a dog. This does not mean dog is
good and cow is food. All animals including the dog should be shown
love and care. But cow especially has a serious significance for
human existence. Talk about cows' feelings is often brushed off as
fluffy and sentimental but this book proves it otherwise.
If humanity and the planet have to survive, we have to replace our
present day economic model. It's a fossil fuel based, car-centred,
energy inefficient model and promotes over exploitation of natural
resources, encourages a throwaway society, creates social injustice
and is not viable any longer. This book presents an alternative
economic system for the 21st Century. This is an economics which
works for the people and the Planet.
This book deals with the ability of animals to feel, perceive or be
conscious, or to have subjective experiences. In Taiwan a cow
separated from owner, goes on hunger strike. In rural Cambodia, a
motherless child finds mother in a cow as he suckles her. Down in
Australia a flood heroine, after rescuing her owner, is leading a
pampered existence. In Brazil's Pantanal swamps, a cow was seen
wandering among the crocodiles while in India, the land of holy
cows, a bull hero is booked out for two years. Meanwhile, up in
Alps the Swiss are combating stress by renting out the mountain
cows while in Germany, the nation's focus has been on Yvonne, the
runaway cow. There are numerous such stories here. Cows rule and
cow rock The great blind spot of our modern Civilization is the
mistreatment and disregard for non-human life in nearly every
capacity.
Ask any child where their food comes from, and the chances are he
or she will say the supermarket. And most adults don't know a lot
more about how food ends up on their plate either. We have taken
food for granted. It's a mistake for which we are paying dearly.
Food doesn't grow on supermarket shelves. According to United
Nations, a disease tsunami is sweeping the world. Humanity is dying
out. This is the result of our deep ignorance about our food. Food
processing and health care are now multi-trillion dollar
industries. Profit-seeking leeches have realized there is lot of
money in making people sick and then selling them fancy healthcare
plans. We have taken these merchants of death as our well-wishing
friends. Eating has become a very complicated affair. It is not
supposed to be a rocket science. Even the birds, beasts and insects
know what to eat. They have no scientific institutions or research
organizations. Time to be enlightened about what we put in our
mouth is now. We are digging our grave with our teeth, day in and
day out. When will we pull our heads out of the sand and see the
reality we face? If you don't have good health, the other things
like food, housing, transportation, education and recreation don't
mean much. At least a dozen studies a day are being rolled out to
further confuse the already confused public. This book may have
some definitive answers to our dinnertime dilemmas.
We're finally going to get the bill for the Industrial Age. If the
projections are right, it's going to be a big one: the ecological
collapse of the planet, says Jeremy Rifkin. At the dawn of the
industrial age two hundred years ago, we took a wrong turn when we
started living on nature's capital instead of nature's incomes. We
started gorging upon resources that took nature millions of years
to create. These resources were saved up by nature according to its
own plan of functioning. Nature has her own way; she better
understands her own affairs than we. We have one planet to live on
and all our needs have to be satisfied with whatever is in here. We
can not import a thing from other planets for our survival, no
matter how much we advertise our dubious moon missions. All we can
do is blow up billions and console the taxpayers with few rocks.
This senseless exploitation of resources can not go on forever.
This cradle to grave economics in which we turn every natural
resource into a toxic waste is inherently unsustainable. In nature,
there is no such thing as waste. So called waste generated by one
living being is effectively utilized by another and so on until
nothing is left. This is called the cycle of life. But today our
linear system of living has replaced this natural cyclical system.
This is where cow comes into picture. Living with cow is living on
nature's incomes without depleting its capital resources. In the
natural plan of Vedic living, human society depends on cows for its
requirements of economic prosperity, food production, soil
fertility, nutrition, healthcare, fuel supply, transport, spiritual
wellbeing, sustainable development, individual and social peace,
higher consciousness, development of human qualities, performance
of religious duties, environmental protection, ecological
preservation, advancement of art & culture, cottage industry
etc. Many of the maladies staring in our face today can be traced
to this factor - humanity distancing itself from the timeless
culture of cow protection.
The term sacred cow finds its origin in the ancient Vedic
tradition, dating back to thousands of years. What really prompted
these folks to revere and worship the cows? Were they really so
stupid as to worship an animal? Are we really that smart now to
ridicule their idea? Why didn't they propose to worship any other
animal like tiger, dog or monkey. This book delineates various
aspects of cow sciences as presented by the voice of an old
civilization, Vedas.
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