In September in Delhi, the capital of India, the G20 will be held, ie the meeting of the leaders of 19 of the most industrialized countries in the world and the representatives of the European Union. In view of the event, the local administration has launched an intense urban redevelopment campaign: the authorities have cleared out the illegal settlements near the buildings where the summit will be held and have reorganized mobility to slightly reduce the notoriously chaotic and intense traffic of the city.
Among other measures, the local government announced Thursday that it would begin capturing all the stray dogs it found around 50 luxury hotels and tourist attractions, and temporarily moving them to pet sterilization centers until the end of the G20.
There is no recent official data on the number of stray dogs living in Delhi, but according to the latest data held by the Indian government in 2012 there were at least 60,000. Authorities frequently organize spaying campaigns to make sure the dog population doesn’t balloon, but it’s not uncommon to spot packs of stray dogs both in parks and in the city’s residential districts. For this reason, the intention was to “hide” them in the days when officials and leaders from all over the world will be staying in the city.
However, on Sunday, the municipality announced that it had changed its mind on the matter, and therefore the capture and movement of the dogs will not take place. The reason was not explained, but in recent days the decision had attracted a lot of criticism from both groups of residents and animal rights activists.
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Although they have no owners, in fact, many of these strays are “adopted” by the neighborhood in which they live, and usually the people who feed them are very fond of them. During the winter it can even happen that they are covered with tailored jackets to keep them warm. But some are also quite dangerous and it can happen that packs of dogs attack children on the street. About 17 million dog bites are reported every year across India and according to data from the World Health Organization nearly 20,000 people die from rabies.
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