Maneka Gandhi offers to attend to activist Parulekar’s pets

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/maneka-gandhi-offers-to-attend-to-activist-parulekars-pets/882614/

Member of Parliament Maneka Gandhi has stepped in to look after animals at the Pune home of noted animal rights activist Claude Lila Parulekar (78), who was allegedly confined to her house.

Parulekar is now in her Queen’s Road bungalow in Pune with 150-200 rescued animals, including dogs and cows who have no trained staff to look after them. The conditions, as stated by her friend Pranoti Vyas, are very unhygienic for a person with low immunity.

Gandhi, the chairperson of the People for Animals organisation, has said in her intervention application that Parulekar, the sole trustee of the Jeevraksha Animal Welfare Trust, is her “long time friend”. Gandhi has said that her NGO wished to offer immediate relief to the animals at Parulekar’s home in order to prevent further harm to them.

Gandhi’s intervention application states, “The current situation if allowed as it is, the animals may perish and the loss would be not just in terms of lives, but will also fail the efforts of the lifetime of a woman who never married, never had children, lived like a sadhvi and loved the animals unconditionally. That would be a waste of her lifetime efforts, which is not fair to Parulekar or her animals.”

Gandhi urged the court to allow her to attend to the animals.

Pranoti Vyas, a food-technologist from Satara, had moved the Bombay High Court through her lawyers Jamshed Mistry and Pradeep Havnur, seeking directions to the disability commissioner to take action for urgent assistance to Parulekar, who suffers from a number of ailments including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, left-paralysis, urinary tract infection and low immunity.

Vyas has also stated that Parulekar is in the “clutches of the Pawar group” — led by Pratap Pawar, brother of Union Minister Sharad Pawar — who “initially tried to grab the property and shares of Lila in Sakal Papers Ltd and have literally taken over possession of her person and many of her assets.”

Pursuant to court directions, Mistry said, Parulekar was taken to a Pune hospital and examined by doctors who said she is still in need of care. Vyas’s petition will be heard on December 9.

HC allows Maneka to take care of Lila’s animals

http://www.indianexpress.com/story_mobile.php?storyid=883549 

The Bombay High Court on Friday approved the intervention application filed by MP Maneka Gandhi, chairperson of animal rights organisation People For Animals( PFA), to look after the animals at the home and shelter of animal rights activist Claude Lila Parulekar (78).

On December 2, Newsline had reported that Gandhi had filed an application to provide help to the animals at the shelter located on Queen’s Road, Pune. In the application, it is stated that the volunteers of PFA Pune and the Jeev Raksha Support Group are willing to provide immediate relief to the animals of Jeevraksha. Manoj Oswal, animal welfare officer and member of PFA Pune, said, “We will now put together a team to manage the shelter and prevent further harm and neglect to the animals.”

Some of the crucial matters the team will look into include maintaining database and preparing medical case papers of the 150-200 animals at the shelter, assisting in day-to-day work, urgent isolation of sick and diseased animals in proper enclosures which need to be built, vaccinations and implementation of animal birth control programme in coordination with other NGOs.

In the application, Gandhi had stated: “The current situation if allowed as it is, the animal may perish and the loss would be not just in terms of loss of innocent lives but it will fail the efforts of the lifetime of a lady who never married, never had children, lived like a sadhvi, all for her unconditional love for her animals. That would be a waste of the lifetime efforts of Lila.” Parulekar, who was allegedly confined to her house, suffers from a number of ailments, including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease.