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Heavily subsidised, this free programme has been made possible thanks to a major grant of Rs.2,50,000/- from the Animal Welfare Board and a donation of approximately Rs.67,532/- from the Alice Morgan Wright-Edith Goode Fund of the HSUS, U.S.A. During 1997-98, a special grant of Rs.95,820/- was received from the RSPCA, England towards the ABC programme.
BANNING OF DISSECTION
In a major win for animal rights activists, the Ministry for Human
Resource Development, Government of India, told the Delhi High Court on
May 19, 1997, that it had decided to make animal dissection optional for
school students.
Following this submission by the Central Government's Standing Counsel Meera Bhatia, a Division Bench consisting of Justice Y.K. Sabharwal and Justice D.K.Jain disposed of a public interest petition moved by the Blue Cross of India and ten others. The petitioners had demanded that if the Government did not ban dissections, these should be made optional.
Counsel Raj Panjwani, appearing for the petitioners, had contended that "needless and unnecessary" experiments on animals in schools were not only cruel to animals but also to students, whose right to act by their conscience was violated by the forced dissections. The Blue Cross is most grateful to Mr. Raj Panjwani for waiving his fees for the case.
COMMITTEE FOR THE PURPOSE OF CONTROLLING AND SUPERVISING EXPERIMENTS
ON ANIMALS
The Central Government, in exercise of the powers under the Prevention
of Cruelty to Animals Act, 1960 has constituted a Committee for the Purpose
of Controlling and Supervising Experiments on Animals (CPCSEA) with effect
from 23Rrd February 1996.
mr. S. Chinny Krishna, Vice Chairman of the Blue Cross, has been appointed as member of the CPCSEA with effect from 23rd February, 1996 for a period of four years.
Noble steps taken by the Committee include