Our national bird is Peacock, national animal is Tiger and national sport is Hockey and I am sure when these were selected as national icons, hey must have been the obvious choice at the moment but I guess their relevance is lost now somehow. We need to reconsider what should be our national icons

The tiger is probably the most majestic animal and maybe that is why it was chosen as the national animal, something that represented the ultimate authority, we all know that the Tiger is called the king of the jungle. Over the past decades, it has been suffering at the hands of the humans. The number of tigers has gone down drastically due to poaching and deforestation. Things got so out of control that we had to start Project Tiger. We had to initiate measures to ensure that the Tiger doesn't get added on the extinct species list. So much for a king, a king whose existence in itself is danger in hardly a ruler.

Street dogs survive the hostile environment where the Muncipal corporations are trying to get rid of them and they have to live in almost suidical conditions of the roads.

We are living in a democracy and not a monarchy so a king doesn't suit us well anyway. I guess the new national animal should be a dog. A dog is supposedly a man's best friend, it has been proved useful in so many ways but most importantly I would like the dog to be the national animal because of it's survival instinct. The municipal corporations of every city are trying to get rid of the stray dogs but their numbers keep on increasing. I remember a few months ago a BMC van came to catch the stray dogs and I don't know how they found out but all the dogs were prepared for it and even before the van could stop outside out compound, all of the dogs ran and hid in the Aarey colony.

A crow is not as beautiful as a peacock but it represents a quality we need most-survival instinct.

So what would you prefer, an animal that we are desperately trying to save from extinction or someone who is thriving in spite of all adversities?

Similarly our national bird is a peacock. Again a bird that is fighting for it's existence and has no hope in hell to make it on it's own. Since it is our national bird, we will keep it from extinction for a long time but if it were not, it would have faced extinction a lot earlier. On the other hand, we have birds like crows and pigeons that are thriving in an environment where the peacocks are finding it hard to survive.

I think apart from the animal and the bird we should also have a national insect and the mosquito or the fly could be it. Mosquitoes are flies are one step ahead of gods, crows and pigeons that are just surviving while we are not hostile. All the intelligence of the planet's intelligent species is not enough to wipe out mosquitoes and flies.