Tag Archives: Ayurveda
CSIR touts dubious ‘Ayurveda’ product for diabetes
At 6 am on September 13, the CSIR handle on X.com published the following post about an “anti-diabetic medicine” called either “Daiba 250” or “Diabe 250”, developed at the CSIR-Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine (IIIM): Its “key features”, according to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Ayurveda, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Diabe-250, drug patent, Indian Institute of Integrated Mecicine, Innoveda Biological Solutions, Ministry of AYUSH, nutritional supplement, Salacia, type 2 diabetes, α-glucosidase inhibitors
Comments Off on CSIR touts dubious ‘Ayurveda’ product for diabetes
Government by Supreme Court
On February 27, a bench of the Supreme Court upbraided Patanjali Ayurved and its chairman Acharya Balkrishna for continuing to disparage systems of medicine other than Ayurveda (technically, what it calls Ayurveda) and claiming its products offer “permanent relief” from … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Op-eds
Tagged Acharya Balkrishna, Advertising Standards Council of India, Ayurveda, Baba Ramdev, Indian Medical Association, Ministry of AYUSH, Patanjali Ayurved, pharmacovigilance, Pushpa Mitra Bhargava, Ritwick Dutta, Supreme Court of India, TN Godavarman
Comments Off on Government by Supreme Court
Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
We may go on deleting sections of our history but in the world outside where there are multiple centres of research into the Indian past, and many scholars, there these expunged sections from books used in India will continue to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged Ayurveda, Brian Keating, Charles Lieber, Elon Musk, Hyperloop, NCERT, Nobel Prizes, prestige bias, public transport, Rapido, Romila Thapar, Vedas
Comments Off on Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
We may go on deleting sections of our history but in the world outside where there are multiple centres of research into the Indian past, and many scholars, there these expunged sections from books used in India will continue to … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture
Tagged Ayurveda, Brian Keating, Charles Lieber, Elon Musk, Hyperloop, NCERT, Nobel Prizes, prestige bias, public transport, Rapido, Romila Thapar, Vedas
Comments Off on Marginalia: Romila on textbooks, Rapido ad, Nobel nonsense
What about the celebrities in food ads?
The row over Bournvita last month was spurred by a social-media influencer’s viral video of the product’s allegedly unhealthy sugar content. Following a legal threat from Mondelez International India, which makes Bournvita, the influencer deleted his video and apologised. But … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Scicomm
Tagged Ayurveda, Bournvita, Department of Consumer Affairs, FMCG, FSSAI, news literacy, surrogate advertising
Comments Off on What about the celebrities in food ads?
What about the celebrities in food ads?
The row over Bournvita last month was spurred by a social-media influencer’s viral video of the product’s allegedly unhealthy sugar content. Following a legal threat from Mondelez International India, which makes Bournvita, the influencer deleted his video and apologised. But … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Culture, Scicomm
Tagged Ayurveda, Bournvita, Department of Consume Affairs, FMCG, FSSAI, news literacy, surrogate advertising
Comments Off on What about the celebrities in food ads?
The devil’s lassi
‘The Devil’s Milkshake’, Tarence Ray in The Baffler, February 23, 2023: You’ve seen it before. An industrial disaster poisons a town’s food or water supply. Residents get angry. Public officials try to dispel that anger through a public act of … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Ayurveda, Devil's Milkshake, East Palestine, modern medicine, rationalism, solar eclipse, superstition
Comments Off on The devil’s lassi
Poverty, psychology and pseudoscience
From the abstract of ‘Why Do People Stay Poor? Evidence on Poverty Traps from Rural Bangladesh’, November 24, 2020: There are two broad views as to why people stay poor. One emphasizes differences in fundamentals, such as ability, talent or … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged astrology, attentional space, Ayurveda, cognitive function, faith-based medicine, intelligence, IQ, John Henryism, phytotherapy, Poverty, poverty trap, pseudoscience, scarcity, Sendhil Mullainathan, traditional medicine
Comments Off on Poverty, psychology and pseudoscience
Ayurveda is not a science – but what does that mean?
This post has benefited immensely with inputs from Om Prasad. Calling something ‘not a science’ has become a pejorative, an insult. You say Ayurveda is not a science and suddenly, its loudest supporters demand to know what the problem is, … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged allopathy, authoritarianism, Ayurveda, bhakts, Bharatiya Janata Party, far right, hospital care, Imre Lakatos, Karl Popper, knowledge systems, modern science, nationalism, Paul Feyerabend, pseudoscience, reason for state, social science, state, Thomas Kuhn, view from nowhere, welfare, welfare state, welfarism
Comments Off on Ayurveda is not a science – but what does that mean?
A trumpet for Ramdev
The Print published an article entitled ‘Ramdev’s Patanjali does a ‘first’, its Sanskrit paper makes it to international journal’ on February 5, 2020. Excerpt: In a first, international science journal MDPI has published a research paper in the Sanskrit language. … Continue reading
Posted in Scicomm
Tagged Acharya Balkrishna, Ayurveda, FMCG, FSSAI, MDPI, objectivity, peer review, pseudoscience, psoriasis, science journalism, scientific publishing, The Print, Withania somnifera
Comments Off on A trumpet for Ramdev