When most people hear the term ‘Alternative Medicine’ they tend to think that it is used to describe something that offers a tested, tried alternative to mainstream systems of medicine. In India we have three types of systems of treatment and diagnosis- the recognized evidence based one - the scientific system, the recognized but not evidence based ones under the acronym AYUSH- Ayurveda, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy, and the third has a list that is almost never complete but contains common ones like electrohomeopathy, reiki, pranic healing, aromatherapy, music therapy, gem therapy, etc. The term ‘alternative medicine’ perhaps describes best the last class. (Note: Technically all those systems of treatment and diagnosis that are not science-based are designated as ‘Alternative Medicine’, but in the Indian context there are three categories because of the government’s endorsement of AYUSH.) The third class labeled ‘Alternative Medicine’ in India seems to be the favourite hunting ground for quacks of all types. Read the full story

This is Part - III of Dr. Kamath’s series on Heretics, Rebels and Revolutionaries. Read Part II here. Dr. Kamath’s article on The Great Nastik Revolt is part of his previous series on The Truth About The Bhagavad Gita, and can be found here.

Brahmins Claim To Control Cosmos!

By 6^th century B. C., the Brahmanic pretentions reached such ridiculous heights that Brahmins claimed to control the entire cosmos. This was based on the following logic: Vedic Gods controlled the Universe; Yajnas compelled gods to fulfill man’s desires; Brahmins composed Mantras (magical incantations) uttered at Yajnas to delude gods; and therefore Brahmins controlled the Universe. Believing this, Kshatriyas sacrificed grain, ghee and animals to compel the gods to grant them their wishes (power, wealth and heaven, BG: 2:43). The Brahmins extracted hefty fees from kings for performing increasingly exacting and complicated Yajnas. Naturally, ostentatious desire-driven Yajnas (Kamya Karma) became the hallmark of an aristocratic Brahmanic Dharma of post-Vedic India. Read the full story

Everybody Bake Jesus Day was celebrated on July 3^rd, 2010, to protest the Spanish government’s violation of musician Javier Krahe’s freedom of speech. The event generated enthusiastic response on facebook. Scroll through the slideshow to see how folks around the world commemorated the day.

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My first contact with astrology must have been soon after my birth, because a horoscope is a must-have for every child born in my parents’ community. This horoscope must have also been drawn up by my maternal uncle, himself an astrologer of no mean repute, though in the last decades of his life he used to tell me, “it is not for unbelievers like you!”. My first conscious contact with this ’science’ occurred when I was a schoolboy. A cousin of mine, S.S. Kamath, was interested in investigating astrological claims. He told me of an incident where he had copied Jawaharlal Nehru’s (the then Prime Minister of India) horoscope from a magazine and showed it to an astrologer telling him that it was the horoscope of a salesman in a cloth shop. The astrologer made his calculations and told him that it was that of an ordinary man who would be leading a routine humdrum existence. On being told that the horoscope was actually that of the Prime minister of India, the astrologer wiggled out of the situation making up some excuse. Read the full story

This is the story of a little girl of fourteen and the ambitions of her mother whom we met at the studios of Live India TV channel on the evening of 18th June. The story begins on this date, when I received a call from the channel asking if I could visit their studios if I was in Delhi. When the call arrived, Shubrum, Rakshi and I were on our way over to their house, after a very important and successful meeting with the present director of Vigyana Prasar Network, Dr.Anuj Sinha. Since Shubrum had a meeting, Rakshi and I decided to go for the live broadcast to investigate the case of this girl, Ranjana. It was the claim of her family and some others that she had the unique power to see blindfolded. Some of these folks also accompanied her to the studio. It was claimed that she had been given a certificate by the Ministry of Human Resource Development that she had the power of seeing with a cloth tied over her eyes! That was supposed to be in recognition of her ‘unique talents’. It was quite clear that this girl who was from a village near Varanasi wanted to go places! Read the full story

In my previous article we discussed how Sai Baba satisfied his sexual appetite by abusing innocent children with complete disregard to consequences to their welfare. Sexual abuse serves another purpose for Sai Baba: Dominating these children and converting them into his lifelong devotees and henchmen. In a sense, the sexual abuse is ritual castration by means of which he is telling them literally, “From now onwards I have you boys by the balls.” In a highly shame-oriented society such as India, victims feel great deal of shame to admit that they are sex abuse victims, and they are fearful of exposing such a powerful and revered person. This is further made difficult because of social pressure from victim’s fearful well-wishers; fear of corrupt police who do not hesitate to torture or murder accusers in cold blood; distrust of incompetent prosecutors, and lack of faith in the judiciary incapable of separating state and religion. Read the full story

Last week we wrote about a report by the media outlet Tehelka which, in collaboration with Cogent EMR, conducted Electromagnetic Radiation surveys of Delhi and concluded that radiation levels are well above recommended levels. Analysis by Vaibhav on the forums demonstrated the flaws in the science on which the Tehelka report rested. As Vaibhav pointed out, EMR from cell phones is too weak to cause any structural damage to DNA. However, there could be other long-term effects of low intensity EMR exposure. In this second part I look at a few of the other many inconsistencies in reporter Rishi’s article and comments in the discussion with us on facebook. Read the full story

In my previous articles, we discussed how Swamis and Babas cleverly recognized that the primary preoccupations of ordinary people were to fulfill their heart’s desires and to protect themselves from imaginary or real evils. They met these deep-rooted psychological needs by the deception of miracles, sleight of hand or even sheer gift of the gab. To fleece the deluded masses and profit from their weaknesses, they built massive temple-casino complexes. They invested a portion of their gains in building colleges, hospitals and other institutions, which gave people the impression that they were doing great socially beneficial services. The reality is that these institutions merely served the purpose of deluding people benefiting from them and silencing their critics. In the process they fulfilled their own desires (sexual and financial) and took care of their own insecurity. Sai Baba and his Puttaparti temple-casino complex is a classic example of this web of fraud bewildering people and profiting from their delusion. Read the full story

This is the first part in a series of articles to check the facts and the analyze evidence concerning the recent Tehelka report concluding that radiation levels in Delhi are far above recommended safe levels.

On June 8, 2010, Tehelka reported on a survey they had done of the city of Delhi. The media outlet teamed up with Cogent EMR, a company that, as fellow Nirmukta member Sajith Unni has pointed out, manufactures a number of products that are extremely dubious. Tehelka’s report ended up being one of the most fear-instilling pieces of journalism on the subject. The reporter, Rishi Mazumdar, essentially concluded that Delhi is a radiation hot-zone with levels far exceeding the acceptable limits suggested by the scientists.

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This is about those brave ’souls’ who were very keen to teach us a lesson and then learnt the lesson that they had much more to learn than to teach, and hence chose the easy way out - run away! There are quite a number of people who have taken that path, however I am going to write only about those few that I can recall off hand. There is a lot of publicity being accorded to the one who was threatened by a Tantrik in 2008 on a TV channel. Two years later, it is still being talked about. It brings to my mind an incident that happened about a decade ago in a place called Charvathur, 75 kms south of Mangalore. Read the full story