TRANSFORM TODAY, EMP0WER TOMORROW!
AS we enter into the New Year 2025, and wish each other a prosperous new year, we need to focus on strengthening and building ourselves, empowering ourselves to build a new world – a new society. Be active in involvement and participation. We have to learn to live so simple that others may simply live and grow gracefully, helping those in need and who are suffering. Life is a mixture of joys and sorrows, hopes and struggles and hardships, and we are all puppets in the hands of God who made us to help one another. If we transform ourselves today, we empower our tomorrows with peace and joy!
—Cajetan Peter D’Souza, Mumbai
ESCALATING STRAY DOG MENACE
THE recent government census reveals that there are 56,000 stray dogs in India’s smallest state. The factual canine population in our Goa must be much more with the stray dogs multiplying by the day in every nook and corner. Every road in the cities and all corners of the villages are infested with stray dogs, even messing up our beaches. The situation now is very alarming and disturbing. It is high time that the authorities address the situation on a war footing, making it a priority to redress this distressing stray dog menace in Goa.
Over the years crores have been spent on the stray dog menace, but the situation has just been getting shoddier. The so-called sterilisation program has just not worked. Sterilization alone could never be the only solution to this grave and alarming crisis of stray dogs.
Pet animals are an asset to society. It is also true that animals are required to be protected from unnecessary pain and suffering. Love and compassion for animals is also growing. However, when it comes to choosing between the suffering of human beings due to a dog bite, obviously the weightage will have to be given to the suffering of humans. There is a need and necessity to consider the seriousness of the stray dog menace in a very dispassionate manner, not influenced by any emotional issues.
—Aires Rodrigues, London