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
Uttar Pradesh (UP) is the most populous state in India and is known to be one of the most backward too. In National politics it is always said that the party that comes to power in UP will eventually rule the center (a bellwether state, as they say in the Uniter States). It is hence necessary that a strong rationalism movement is built up in UP if a national level impact is to be effected. Read the full story
Bihar is one of the largest and most populous states in India. It also happens to be the most backward. However, the state has had a relatively glorious past. Bihar is well known for its intellectual achievements right from the time of Buddha. Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi started his freedom struggle from Motihari in this state. One of the most well known movements of the post independent India against the authoritarianism of Indira Gandhi was started by Jayaprakash Narayan who was a Bihari.
In spite of such a progressive history, Bihar has become a state riddled with superstitions and obscurantism. For the past five years we have been associated with running a campaign in Bihar to inculcate scientific temper among people. It all started when a Minister of State for Science and Technology of the Government of India and the Member of Parliament from Navada, Sanjay Paswan, honoured tantriks at a public ceremony. Read the full story
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
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
Tamilnadu, formerly known as Madras State, is where the Self-Respect Movement was first started by E.V.Ramaswamy in the early years of the twentieth century. It was for the first time that the so-called ‘lower castes’ rebelled against the hegemony of the Brahmins, and started a movement that rejected all superstitions, religious rituals and the highest superstition of them all- god! In this state whichever party comes to power has to conform to the ideology of EVR Thanthai Periyar as he came to be known. So, in this state one can expect the ideology of the rationalist movement to be accepted without any significant opposition. Read the full story
With the many recent claims of people living without food and water, it has become very necessary to examine the issues that have been raised, particularly the methods used to verify the claims of these people. There is this man from Kerala who claims to have extracted energy from the sun by staring at it and converting it to the energy needed to keep his bodily processes going on. There is this man from Gujarat claiming to have been blessed by a goddess who pours something down his throat, and so he does not need any food or water. He also claims to have lived for seven decades without these! Read the full story
The treatment know as Cytotron therapy has no scientific basis and is not noted in any approved text book on cancer therapy or prescribed by any oncologists. But for the past few months this “therapy” has been advertised as a cure for cancer. In its latest avatar, the ad carried the name of a doctor. After we had threatened to complain to the State Medical Council and get his name struck from the medical register for advertising unproved remedies, it disappeared.
But the ads continue to run today. Since the matter is an offense under the Drugs and Magic remedies (Objectionable Advertisements Act), we have brought this to the attention of the assistant drugs controller for Dakshina Kannada for necessary action under the act.
It is criminal to raise false hope in patients by promising cures for which there is no evidence. The entire ad is misleading. We could as wel
l make up one as follows:
Ms. Meena Kumari (name changed), 53 years old, complained of dysentery and was diagnosed with cancer etc. etc. She went in for a quack treatment at ABCD clinic for XYZ therapy and passed away within 3 months. Which goes to prove that XYZ therapy is fake and can be fatal within a short time. It is not known whether the cancer was the cause of her mortality or the quack therapy that promised a very rapid cure.
I request oncologists and physicians to take up this issue with their respective bodies and announce to the public the facts about whether this therapy is approved for public use. In general treatments for diseases are not advertised in India, except by quacks, which should make us suspicious of the antecedents of the treatment and the administrators of the same.
The political space in India seems to be as large as the country itself. We have parties advocating everything from communism to capitalism, Hindutva to Islam, though not publicly, since the constitution prohibits it. We have the Manuvadi parties, the Dalit parties, parties of the OBCs, parties proposing an atheistic government and so on. Into this cacophony a new entrant has arrived, throwing his hat into the ring! All beware, the incorruptible, the squeaky clean, unmarried, physically fit superhero is here- step aside all, here is the man for whom the country has been waiting since independence- the messiah has finally arrived on the scene. Ram Kishen Yadav, aka Baba Ramdev who keeps churning his abdominal muscles on the stage, thumbing his nose at people and collecting millions in the name of yoga. If one watches his TV program one can see him jumping about, performing contortions, panting for breath, and as soon as he gets it back, uttering platitudes about everything under the sun,moon and stars! Read the full story
