THE Notification of Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 brought by the Narendra Modi-led BJP government is a direct attack on livelihoods of millions of poor peasants engaged in dairy farming, people who are engaged in leather industry and earn their livelihood from sale of meat.

On May 23, protests against the barbaric attack at Nabanna Avijan were held across West Bengal. CPI (M) Polit Bureau member and state secretary Surjya Kanta Mishra, Left front Chairman Biman Basu leading the protest rally in Kolkata.

FOR more than eight months since the then chief minister of Tamil Nadu J Jeyalalithaa was hospitalised in late September 2016, the state of government in Tamil Nadu has been nothing short of disastrous for the people of the state. Following the demise of Jeyalalithaa and the subsequent split in the AIADMK, the rival factions of the AIADMK have been far more preoccupied with the struggle for the capture of the AIADMK and the survival of the government than with anything else.

THE Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (Regulation of Livestock Markets) Rules, 2017 were published on May 25, 2017, just days before the commemoration of the third anniversary of the Modi government. Through these rules, the government has effectively dealt a blow to small producers and the farmers who sell their unfit animals to traders and commission agents in the livestock markets. Further, the foundations of meat export industry are also steeped in informal supply lines and trading networks which supply cattle to ‘modernised slaughter houses’.

The Polit Bureau of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) has issued the following statement on May 27. THE notification of the ministry of environment, forests and climate change that bans sale of cattle for slaughter is an atrocious attempt by the Modi government to give legal cover for its wholly communal and divisive agenda to impose a diet code on the country.It will destroy the livelihood of crores of farmers involved in animal husbandry, eliminate traditional cattle fairs, put an unfair burden on farmers to care for useless cattle.