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Maneka Gandhi

04 February 2013

Created: 05 February 2013

Last Updated: 08 March 2013

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Last time I tried to tell you the truth of some commonly held beliefs. Here are some more.

* Cats and dogs should drink milk -

Read more: Commonly Held Beliefs That Survived Time

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Maneka Gandhi

23 January 2013

Created: 24 January 2013

Last Updated: 08 March 2013

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Last week I went to inaugurate a little gaushala in a village outside Delhi. After the ceremony the gaushala committee head handed me a bottle of distilled cow urine. I asked him what I was supposed to do with it. Drink it, he said, it cleans the body.

I may be an animal lover but I draw the line at drinking cow urine. I took it and decided to experiment on a dog which had fleas and ticks. We rubbed the urine on and, after some time in the sun, bathed her with soap. The fleas and ticks disappeared and there was no smell at all of urine.

I am now sending it to my animal hospital to try it on other animals with parasites.

According to those who drink it, cow urine has many benefits: it improves digestion and intelligence, is useful in treating abdominal colic pain and bloating. It is useful in conditions like intestinal worms and skin diseases, obesity, anaemia. It acts as a natural detoxifier.

Apparently it is to be boiled and distilled first. There are many companies that sell distilled cow urine. But if you can get fresh urine, you can prepare the distillate like this:

Put it in a pressure cooker. At the opening on top where the whistle normally is, attach a heat resistant pipe. The other end of the pipe should open into a clean vessel kept dipped in water. Heat the urine in the pressure cooker and collect the distillate in the vessel. Do not use the pressure cooker for anything else. The distilled cow urine can be used for 1 – 2 months, if preserved in an air tight container.

Start with drinking 3-4 drops of cow urine once or twice a day. After a week, increase it to one spoon twice a day.

However there are lots of dos and don’ts: Check whether the cow is well first. Do not store raw cow urine for more than an hour. Take the cow urine for the prescribed time period only.  For example, if used for indigestion, it should be take only till proper digestion is restored. Do not have it if you are very thin, emaciated, tired, suffer from fatigue, male infertility and insomnia. It is not to be given to children. Remember: cow urine therapy is not nourishing. It is detoxifying and cleansing in nature.

Many Ayurvedic medicines use cow urine as an ingredient: Shiva Gutika, Panchagavya Ghrita, Maha Panchagavya Ghrita, Gomutra Haritaki,Mandoora Vatakam

Some Ayurvedic medicines recommend cow urine to be drunk along with their medicines: Punarnavadi kashayam, Mahayograj Guggul - in the treatment of anaemia. Vyoshadi Guggulu,Khadiradi Kashayam –  worm infestation, kankayan Vati - to treat abdominal lump due to kapha origin.

It is used along with Pathyadi Lepa churna, an herbal powder, to prepare a paste applied externally to relieve skin diseases such as dermatitis.

It is used in the process of making of Loha Bhasma

Our old texts like Atharva Veda, Charaka Samhita, Rajni Ghuntu, Vridhabhagabhatt, Amritasagar, Bhavaprakash, Sushruta Samhita extol the benefits of cow urine. The Cow Urine Treatment and Research Centre, Indore has conducted research and claim that that it is capable of curing diabetes, blood pressure, asthma, psoriasis, eczema, heart disease, blockage in arteries, fits, cancer,  piles, prostrate, arthritis, migraine, thyroid, ulcers, acidity, constipation, gynaecological problems, ear and nose problems, varicose veins and dysmenorrhoea, ringworm, skin problems, acne. The major claim is for curing Aids – and it would be such fun if this turned out to be true. Villagers use cow urine as a disinfectant and  apply it on wounds.

The analysis of cow urine shows it contains nitrogen, sulphur, ammonia, copper, phosphate, sodium, potassium, manganese, carbolic acid, iron, uric acid, urea, silicon, chlorine, magnesium, calcium salts, Vitamin A, B, C, D, E, minerals, lactose, enzymes, creatinine, Aurum hydroxide.

I may not drink it, but I certainly think it should be used as both pesticide and bio fertilizer. Hundreds of case studies have been done. In one, 11 farmers of Kali Talavadi in Maharashtra have made a club that uses cow urine as bio fertilizer on cotton, groundnut, maize, castor, chillies. They say that spraying 100-200 litres per acre increases the production of crops and of course reduces the cost of production because the urine is collected from the village cows. The farmers reported that chilli production increased by 10%.and maize by 15%

Farmers from this club bring all the animals under one shed and collect the urine at night. In two years they have collected 1.7 lakh litres of cow urine and sold 1.68 litres at Rs.2.50 / litre earning Rs.4.2 lakhs. At present 107 families are using cow urine as a bio fertilizer in the area and they say that if cow urine is used on the fields for three years , you will never need chemical fertilizers and pesticides again.

I firmly believe that the cow and the buffalo are the answer to all our agricultural issues. If the government that forced our farmers into chemical dependence would simply see the cow as our saviour out of this trap and stop letting her be killed for leather and meat export, we would get cheaper food, less cancer and a far healthier economy.

Maneka Gandhi

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org

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Maneka Gandhi

28 January 2013

Created: 29 January 2013

Last Updated: 08 March 2013

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Now that one mythology has been put to rest – of the world ending on December 21^st - let me attempt to disabuse you of some beliefs that have survived time.

* Bats Fly into Your Hair -

Bats flying around and tangling with human hair are a staple of horror movies. When I was young my grandmother used to tell me that we should use mosquito nets when we slept in the garden as bats would fly into our ears. This belief runs across the world. But it has no truth in it at all. While bats primarily use a form of sonar to navigate through dark areas and avoid obstacles, their eyes, while small, are also completely functional, not to mention the fact that they have excellent hearing and sense of smell. Their agility and echolocation are precise enough to detect and dodge even a single hair or pluck a single tasty mosquito out of the sky. Why would a bat want to dive bomb your hair and tangle itself up? What does it have to gain – a nest, lice, coconut oil?

Why do bats sometimes fly up close to humans? Because humans attract insects. Scents and shampoos and light clothes attract even more. And bats love to eat mosquitoes. So if bats will get near your head, it's just that with that amazing sonar we talked about, a bat can swipe a single flying insect mere inches from your face and never even touch you. It's almost as if they're swooping down from the night sky to protect us. There is a reason why Batman, as guardian angel of the dark, exists

* Mother Birds Abandon Their Chicks if You Touch Them -

If you have ever seen a baby bird under a tree, you will have been told not to touch it as its mother will not take it back. It will be abandoned by its family and die of hunger and cold or be eaten by dogs and cats. As soon as the mother smells a human on it, it’s dead to the family.

The warning is a good one and has probably saved many more chicks than killed them. Most of the time a bird has not been abandoned. It is usually learning how to fly and its mother is away for the moment. It’s a different matter if the bird is completely featherless. Then look for the nest and put the bird back if you can. However the smell part is purely mythical.

Birds hardly use their noses; they rely on their eyes and ears. So whether the bird has been touched by humans or not isn’t terribly apparent to them. Second, birds don't really care if humans touch their chicks or not. It doesn't stop mother birds from feeding or caring for their chicks. They're still bonded to them through good and bad, just like your parents are with you. It was probably started because it was the best way to stop people from touching chicks.

* Rabbits Love Carrots and Mice Love Cheese -

Search for a cartoon rabbit – it will be eating a carrot. Carrots are supposed to be to rabbits what bananas are to monkeys. The only thing more certain than a rabbit's carrot addiction is this: Mice love cheese. If a mousetrap doesn't have a big triangular wedge of cheese in it, it doesn’t work.

Thousands of rabbits have died from this misconception. Every single bit of rabbit information says: If you try to feed a rabbit nothing but carrots, it will die. It's like giving a human nothing but sugar. If your rabbit happens to like carrots, you still have to ration it. Rabbits eat mostly hay and green leafy vegetables. If you give a rabbit a carrot with the green top still on it, it will disregard the carrot part and eat just the top.

As for mice and cheese- this is another cartoon induced myth. Mice have sensitive noses and will decline something as strong-smelling and highly flavoured as cheese. They're actually drawn to foods with relatively high sugar content, such as grains and fruit. Better to use roti in a trap, as most of our villagers know.

How did this myth start? Probably through the cartoon character Bugs Bunny. Like Popeye and his spinach, a way to make carrots more fun for children to eat. One reason may be that cheese in European cupboards hundreds of years ago was always found gnawed into by rats. But that was so because all the other food was locked up: meat was hung and salted and grain stored in jars. It was cheese or starvation.

* You Can't Teach an Old Dog New Tricks-

It takes two days for a senior dog to learn anything – including his new name. As long as you are patient and loving with the dog, he learns whatever you want him to in a week of just 15 minutes a day. I recently rescued a 9 year Labrador with a cataract and a severe kennel cough. He had been locked, beaten, starved for 9 years. In one week he knows his new name, sits, stops, eats gently (he used to jump and snarl when fed) lies at my feet while I work and knows the names of everyone in the household. In fact, with approximately 15 minutes of training every day for two weeks, even the most stubborn dog can usually learn how to sit, stay, fetch, and roll over or whatever your heart desires, regardless of age. It’s people – young or old, who have a problem learning anything. 

* Snakes drink milk -

The snake is a reptile and lacks mammary glands. It does not produce milk for its offspring. Therefore, snakes do not drink milk naturally. They are water drinkers. Captive snakes used by charmers are kept thirsty for days especially before Nag Panchami. Because of their thirst, they are forced to consume milk to soothe their parched throats as a matter of survival. However, milk is not good for their health, and the kidney and liver get badly affected. If milk is forced down their throat they get pneumonia. Most of them die. About 50,000 snakes die each year during the Nagpanchami festival, when people offer milk, congealed butter and sweetened rice to starving snakes.

Maneka Gandhi

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org

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Maneka Gandhi

15 January 2013

Created: 16 January 2013

Last Updated: 08 March 2013

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Think of any form, any colour, and any combination of colours, sex, eating habits or whatever. Nature has already invented it.  And every year scientists discover more and more life forms. In Madagascar alone 615 have been discovered, one of them, the stunning Furcifer timoni chameleon, a shocking green with purple spots who looks as if he has just been painted for a heavy metal rock show. Every year scientists list the ten weirdest creatures found. I wish I could show you their pictures but I have to be content with writing about those found in the last five years. I am not choosing the medical malformations like the one eyed shark or the two headed one. These are aberrations and do not survive. Let’s look at the amazing wonders that exist normally across the world.

The deep-sea acorn worm with huge lips, Yoda purpurata, has been discovered 2.5 kilometres beneath the Atlantic Ocean . The bright purple worm has large lips on the side of its head and uses them to snag its prey. Scientists have names it after the Star Wars character Yoda. No one knows what it does as yet but scientists say this may be an ancestor of ours.

An amazing fungus species Ophiocordyceps camponoti-balzani has been discovered that grows like a dark stalk out of a "zombie" ant's head in a Brazilian rain forest. The fungus is made of four distinct species—all of which can "mind control" ants. The fungus species infects an ant, takes over its brain, alters its behaviour and then kills the insect once the fungus moves to an ideal location for growing and spreading its spores. The fungus's spores enter the body of the ant and makes it climb up the stem of a plant and use its mandibles to secure itself to the plant. Infected ants bite the leaf veins with abnormal force, leaving dumbbell-shaped marks. The fungus then kills the ant, and continues to grow eating the insect. When it is ready to reproduce, its fruiting body grows from the ant's head and ruptures, releasing the spores which infect the ants nearby. Even more amazingly, ants have evolved the ability to sense that a member of the colony is infected; healthy ants will carry the dying one far away from the colony in order to avoid fungal spore exposure.

A new discovery has been made in the Philippines of a sea slug that looks like a pancake. It’s almost flat with black branches running across a white surface and yolk like yellow spots bursting through. The sea slug is a hermaphrodite and has a set of reproductive organs for both sexes but cannot fertilize itself. To mate, two sea slugs come together side by side and (usually both) pass sperm sacs through a tube right behind the head. The eggs hatch into free-swimming larvae which eventually settle onto the ocean bottom as adults. A pair of tentacles called rhinophores on the head have scent receptors that allow it to smell its food. Since the rhinophores stick out and can be a target for hungry fish, the slug hase the ability to withdraw them and hide them in a pocket in its skin if it senses danger.

An expedition by the California Academy of Sciences to the Philippines brought back evidence of more than 300 new species, some of which are bizarre. For example, the deep-sea swell shark that can suck in water to make itself larger when confronted by a predator.

The mountain jungles of Vietnam are home to a new breed of "vampire"—a "flying" tree frog dubbed Rhacophorus vampyrus. Found in 2008, the two-inch-long frog uses webbed fingers and toes to glide from tree to tree.  Vampire tree frog tadpoles have a pair of hard black hooks like fangs sticking out from the undersides of their mouths. These frogs never come down on the ground - Adults deposit their eggs in water pools in tree trunks. The parents feed their baby tadpoles by laying unfertilized eggs as meals. The fangs help in slicing these open.

A “devil worm" called Halicephalobus mephisto, for Mephistopheles the demon of Faustian legend, has been found 3.5 kms under the Earth—the deepest-living animal yet found. These creatures are millions of times bigger than the bacteria they feed on and live in rocks, having evolved to survive the crushing pressure and high heat of the depths.

Off the Florida Keys, hundreds of stinging tentacles dangle from a "pink meanie"—a new species of Drymonema larsoni jellyfish discovered this year, which is large (3 feet across and 50 pounds) and pink and has a taste for other jellyfishes. Pink meanies prey on other jellyfish, entangling them in tentacles that can be up to 70 feet long. The meanies then reel their victims in and consume them. Adult Drymonema do the majority of their digestion using specialized "oral arms" that dangle alongside their tentacles. The oral arms exude digestive juices which break down the prey. The creatures have been documented eating 34 jellyfish at a time.

An underwater oddity, the coral reef-dwelling harlequin shrimp is a colourful and dangerous predator. Male and female shrimps pair for life. Although they are small (2-5 cm in length) they eat animals bigger than them. A mated pair of harlequin shrimp will co-operate when it comes to preying on their favourite food, starfish. When a starfish is found the couple will work together to prize its arms from the rock it's anchored to, and turns it over. They will then begin to feast, starting with its delicate feet and working inwards. Sometimes they will take it into a dark nook or cranny and continue to feed on it for days, or keep it alive deliberately in order to feed on it later.

The Potato Bug has nothing to do with potatoes. It feeds on dead material, burrowing underground to get to decaying roots. It produces a unique song, used to communicate during mating, and is made by the insect beating its abdomen against the ground, and gives off a foul-smelling scent.

The Dunaliella algae discovered in 2010 in a cave in Chile 's Atacama Desert thrive on very little water. These microbes grow on top of spiderwebs to capitalize on dew that condenses on the webs in the mornings.

The Deinococcus radiodurans bacterium can survive a 15,000 gray dose of radiation, where 10 grays would kill a human and it takes over 1,000 grays to kill a cockroach.

One newfound creature is a loriciferan of the genus Spinoloricus. The creature can survive without oxygen.

How many odd creatures have been discovered! Mudskipper which are fish that live most of their life on land ; Slender Lanternfish that have light organs dotted along the undersides of their bodies; Deep-sea stargazer fish that look like bulldogs and  bury themselves in the seafloor to ambush passing prey after locating them with eyes set on top of the head, and use electricity to stun their prey; Humpback Anglerfish which are the size of a tennis ball, have an enormous head dominated by a cavernous mouth full of long slender teeth that can fold backwards when prey is being swallowed; The Fangtooth fish whose teeth are so long that when the jaw is shut, the lower pair must slide into special sheathes on either side of the fish’s brain to avoid impaling it; The Black Swallower which has the ability to extend its stomach 3 times its size so that it can swallow fish that are bigger than itself, and when it encounters dark waters, creates its own light.

More than 99 percent of all species that have lived on Earth are now extinct. And scientists estimate that roughly 90 percent of the species left on Earth have yet to be discovered. How sad that most of these will also be extinct long before we discover them thanks to our way of living.

Maneka Gandhi

To join the animal welfare movement contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., www.peopleforanimalsindia.org