From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November/December 2012:
MUMBAI–Speaking with the Dalai Lama on World Compassion Day,
November 28, 2012, Humane Society of the U.S. president Wayne
Pacelle announced an official linkage of three formerly separate
Indian projects of the HSUS subsidiary Humane Society International.
“We’ll have our campaigns office in Hyderabad, focused on
factory farming and ending animal testing for cosmetics, our
veterinary training center in Jaipur, and our Asia-wide street dog
management program grounded in Ahmedabad,” Pacelle said.
Maintaining a presence in India since 1996, HSI has sponsored
some of the work of the Help In Suffering animal hospital and shelter
in Jaipur since 2001, began sponsoring veterinary work by the Animal
Help Foundation of Ahmedabad in 2005, promoting Animal Help founder
Rahul Sehgal to become HSI Asia Pacific director in 2007, and also
in 2007 opened the Hyderabad office, under regional media contact
N.G. Jayasimha.
Said the Dalai Lama, 77, “A vegetarian diet is the
most healthy one for you. We must respect all forms of life. Animals
deserve our compassion. We must know their pain. I was not vegetarian
till about five decades ago,” he added, “but when I saw hens being
abused on an animal farm, I decided to become vegetarian.”
The Dalai Lama admitted, however, that he has not consistently
maintained vegetarianism, and is not vegetarian now.
