West Bengal minister wants to auction wild animals

[Ranbir Mahapatra]

This report is indeed absurd. Forget about the illegality of the proposal - the minister seems to have taken the decision on wrong set of information - since when have our forests been over populated? Its another story that forest areas are shrinking. Which brings to the fore a more pertinent question - Is wildlife conservation a hostile subject in the Indian polity?

I am confident that this proposal would get a quiet burial - I just hope that poachers in the Sundarbans or other forests in WB do not take the ministers view as an open license to poach wild animals. More importantly, I hope the government machinery don't get cold feet when it comes to prosecuting cases of poaching in the region.

I thought Sabyasachi's hypothetical example of the person in question becoming the health minister was a bit of a hyperbole - but on second thoughts it couldn't have been more accurate. In the age of coalition politics anything is possible...