My India cow is very good

In the Western world, typically as soon as a dairy cow's prodigious milk output drops off, she is sent packing – to the meatpacker. There, her tough old body (old and worn beyond her young years) becomes hamburger, sausage or mystery meat. During her four or five years as a commercial milk production unit, all her newborn male calves had been forcefully taken away from her within days or hours of birth to become veal or breeding stock.

It's a cruel and tragic life story. But it's not necessarily much better in India.

In India, cows are sacred, in principle, to the dominant Hindu population (80 percent of Indians), but this reverence is often expressed in words alone – even fine laws and regulations. Thus, cow slaughter is illegal in all but two of India's 29 states (these are states where non-Hindu Indians who eat meat are prevalent). Even buffalo – another major milk provider – which is no more sacred in India than in Montana, is legally protected from slaughter in most states of India.

But there's a catch. India’s anti-slaughter laws do nothing to prevent spent cows and buffalo (and surplus calves of both species) from being shipped to other states (or countries) where it is legal to slaughter the poor animals.