Mini Vasudevan

Founder

Photo: Wikimedia (CC BY-SA)

Mini Vasudevan is the founder of Humane Animal Society (HAS) (2006)[1], an Indian non-profit working on animals from Coimbatore.

Mini Vasudevan is an Indian animal welfare activist based in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. With her husband Madhu Ganesh she founded the Humane Animal Society (HAS) in 2006, which rescues, treats and rehabilitates street animals and runs sterilisation and vaccination programmes in the city.

An engineer by training, Vasudevan worked in the United States for thirteen years before returning to India in 2004. She was awarded the Nari Shakti Puraskar, India's highest civilian honour for women, in 2019.

Early life and education

Vasudevan became a vegetarian at the age of eleven after witnessing the slaughter of poultry. She was educated at Sainik School, Kazhakootam, and trained as an engineer, later working in the United States alongside her husband, Madhu Ganesh.

Career

The couple returned from the United States to Coimbatore in 2004. Vasudevan was disturbed by the condition of injured and diseased street dogs in her neighbourhood and by the reluctance of some veterinary practices to treat strays, and in 2006 she and her husband set up the Humane Animal Society.

HAS runs an animal rescue helpline and ambulance service, carries out mass anti-rabies vaccination drives and animal birth control sterilisation programmes, and rehabilitates injured and abandoned animals. The organisation reports having helped at least 65,000 animals, and by 2019 employed seventeen staff.

Recognition

Vasudevan received the Nari Shakti Puraskar from the Ministry of Women and Child Development for 2019, presented in New Delhi.[2][3][4][5][6]

Humane Animal Society (HAS)

Humane Animal Society (HAS) is a non-profit trust registered under the Indian Trusts Act (Certificate No. 998/2006) and 12A of the Income Tax Act, founded in April 2006 to address stray-animal welfare in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu. It runs Animal Birth Control and anti-rabies vaccination drives, and rescues, treats and rehabilitates injured or distressed animals at its 1.25-acre ABC and Rescue Centre before release, alongside a 1.5-acre sanctuary for animals unable to return to the streets. HAS also runs humane-education and community-outreach programmes and has been vetted through GuideStar India's due-diligence process.

Humane Animal Society (HAS) reports the following, on its own site: