Population of Dogs has decreased from 19.08 million in 2007 to 11.67 million in 2012 with a decrease of 38.85%.
http://dahd.nic.in/dahd/WriteReadData/Livestock.pdf
1. i start with my estimate of dogs in india being 60+ million.
2. indian governments are not known for being sensible about social/political policies and concerns, and i won't trust their numbers on human census much less on dogs when i know that dogs have been killing/attacking people openly since 1998 and no central establishment has taken steps to kill dogs... look at this case (
Female foetuses in Beed fed to dogs to hide evidence | Daily Mail Online )... even after such things when dogs are allowed to live on roads, there is no reason to trust government numbers.
3. how are dogs a concern of "department of animal husbandry" when dogs have been attacking/killing people and have almost made cats extinct... this should have been a concern of the home ministry... but this being not so means that the establishment is not taking the matter seriously.
4. dogs in india are not kept under strict license... many people are foolish to feed stray dogs which then breed hugely and these dogs at various times in their life migrate to different areas... therefore their numbers cannot be precisely known by government officers who are not using methods which are scientific and use common sense... look what i found in the initial pages...
this is rubbish.
unless the "knowledgeable persons" of a municipal ward are themselves fighting the menace of dogs or at least angry about the dog menace, they will be sympathetic to dogs and will not tell the government officers how many dogs they feed on their street, much less in their area.
about ten years ago, i complained to local municipality representative to my area about the growing number of dogs in my area... he promised to "raise the issue in the next session of the town hall meetings", and never did... now, most streets in my area have dog gangs each of at least 5 dogs per gang.
people like me should have been the "knowedgeable persons" to be contacted by the government officers to be given a guided tour on the number of dogs in their respective areas or in their city.
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conclusion...
the dailymail article i linked in #1 is from 2012, the same year that the census was done... where did i hear or read of dogs being shot iraqi-style or pakistani-style because they had been attacking people... no, no such action has been taken.
that dahd department seems rather inspired by prime dog lover, maneka gandhi, because it does not contain mention of dogs attacks but rather seems to want to play down the number of dogs to portray that dog attacks are reducing... the attacks have not.
the census is false.