Sacred-cow roundup

last updated 8 January 2015

Delhi

City officials in the Indian capital have begun a drive to rid the streets of wandering cattle. Cows are holy in the Hindu religion, and can’t be harmed. In Delhi alone, nearly 40,000 of them roam freely, blocking cars, foraging in dumpsters, and soiling the sidewalks. That’s a public-safety and -health problem, city officials said last week. Over the next several weeks, the animals will be herded into trucks and transported to cow sanctuaries out in the country. A few pious residents have protested that the cows should be left alone, but most support the relocation. “It’s good they are doing this,” Delhi accountant Vivek Sharma told the London Times. “Cows are a menace to traffic.”