Will the latest ruling by the Delhi High Court put matters to rest between feeders of stray animals and other residents?
In many places, feeders and volunteers not just feed the animals but also sterilise and vaccinate them  Twenty-five-year-old Shyamal Thakker says he has been harassed for years by his housing society in Lokhandwala. It is because he regularly feeds strays and fosters animals in need of care and attention. This is not just my story but that of a number of feeders or rescuers, says Shyamal, over a call from Mumbai. Among other points, it states that stray or street dogs have the right to food and citizens have the right to feed them. It also cautions that in exercising this right, care and caution should be taken to ensure that it does not impinge upon the rights of others. It has only been a few days since the ruling and in the meantime, Shyamal says, feeders continue to be challenged, sometimes aggressively, by housing societies and neighbours. My society still serves us with fines for feeding strays, it varies from 500 to 3,000 a month, he says, adding that, Along with the ruling, there should be laws on protecting our rights too.  Every dog deserves a loving home, says S Chinny Krishna, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Blue Cross of India that started in 1959 in Chennai. He says the only humane method to control rapid breeding is via sterilisation and vaccination. In 1964, the Blue Cross of India started the Animal Birth Control programme. The number of animals sterilised by them varies between14,000 a year to 5,000 last year because of the pandemic. Blue Cross of India (BCI) started their feeding programme called Karuna 2 during the second wave of the pandemic. BCI facilitated 3,000 meals per day in March. Hotel Green Park, Vadapalani, opened their kitchen and gave 700 meals a day, Park Hyatt in Guindy offered a similar quantity and Tail Tale, Pallikaranai, gave 300 meals a day. A number of volunteers joined, driving around delivering the food to street dogs, says Chinny Krishna. Volunteers working with community dogs, also spend a lot of time, money and energy in not only feeding them, but also getting them sterilised, to control the population. Jayshree Ramesh, who has been looking after streeties around her home in Ambattur, Chennai, for the past 25 years, started sterilising them in 2017. With the help of a dog catcher who charges her 1,500 per dog, she manages to carefully put the animal in a crate in her car, and drive to the vet. Jayshree takes her feeding job very seriously. She and her husband get busy cooking for their fur babies as soon as they are done with their own dinner. First, two 10-litre pressure cookers are filled with rice and chicken, and set to cook. Then the second batch goes in. By 9.30pm they are done. The next morning, at 4.30 am, they set out on their daily mission, with two big buckets of chicken rice. She is lucky to have found an empty plot near her house where she feeds around 62 dogs. But it is a problem in gated communities. Especially in cities like Delhi and Mumbai? she says. In Tier-3 and Tier-4 cities there is no dispute, really, says Vikram Chandravanshi, legal consultant, Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI). But in metropolitan cities, due to a lack of space and high rise buildings, he says, when animals are fed at the front door or in parking lots, they tend to stay around these spots. This is resisted by residents who are afraid of dogs. While feeding is a constitutional right, we need to see  on a minute level  what should be avoided. For example, some people feed near childrens play area or near the staircase and this could make an animal anxious, he adds. Reshma Shelatkar, Mumbai-based animal activist and social reformer insists there should be a designated space or feeding point in every area. Just like humans have specific places marked for different things why not have something for this also? she asks. Earlier this year, the AWBI issued a letter to District Collectors all over India asking them to identify sufficient feeding spots in every region, RWA, colleges..., says Vikram. They were asked to find spots that are also convenient for feeders so they dont have to venture out too far late at night or in the wee hours of the morning. Though these are yet to be implemented in a majority of places, in a few cases in Faridabad, Vasant Kunj and Navi Mumbai, it has helped solve problems, he says. Reshma adds she has found a way around the issue, using animal management: the cats and and dogs she feeds have been trained to come to particular spots at meal time, eat and leave. Everything is done in five minutes. This way they do not come in the way of people. In fact, if you do not give them food they are forced to come out searching for food, she says. The feeders are happy to notice that more people have taken to feeding street dogs during this pandemic. The lockdown has made a few people look beyond themselves, says Shyamal. He now gets calls from people who want guidance on how to look after their community dogs. He is particular that people clear out the bowl or paper they serve in, so there is no littering. He says, I tell them it is best to choose late nights or early mornings when there aren't many people around so the animals can come out and eat peacefully on footpaths, in corners of the road.