India takes lead to promote traditional medicines in SAARC nations

The ministry of commerce has started the initiative to forge broader cooperation between the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries on traditional medicines with a view to tap the emerging potential in the field at the global level through joint efforts and by forming a common platform.

The ministry has already drafted the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) and launched consultations with the stakeholders to garner their inputs before finalising the document. It has also sought views from the concerned departments including Ayush that will represent India in the agreement with SAARC countries, sources said.

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Stricter norms for colleges of traditional medicine

India has 499 colleges teaching the Indian system of medicine — 311 colleges for Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha and 188 colleges teaching homeopathy — which will have to follow the new registration system from 2011 academic year.

In order to ensure the quality of education to the students of Indian system of medicines and prevent mushrooming growth of Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani (ASU) and Homoeopathic Colleges, the Centre has issued stricter parameters for granting permission for setting up or upgrading the existing colleges.

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Indigenous Software starts its march against Biopiracy of Traditional Medical Knowledge of India!

Special symbols to denote ancient Indian medicinal formulations are helping identify and catch bio-pirates, who are trying to illegally patent existing knowledge. 

India has put in place a unique "global bio-piracy watch system" through which, whenever somebody files a patent application in any of the seven largest patent offices in the world, scientists sitting in India immediately get to know about it following which the application is checked "for prior knowledge". 

The International Patent Classification (IPC) is a system, which boasts of 69,000 symbols — each indicating the subject to which the invention relates to. 

India has 400 such unique symbols, under IPC, which is specific for medicinal plants and traditional Indian medicinal systems like ayurveda, Siddha, unani and yoga.

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India to showcase mission to protect traditional knowledge

New Delhi, Mar 22 India will showcase its unique mission to curb bio-piracy and share its experience of protecting traditional knowledge in front of representatives from 38 countries at an international conference here.

The conference ''Utilisation of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) as a Model for the Protection of Traditional Knowledge'' has been inaugurated by Science and Technology Minister P K Bansal  today.

"India is the only country in the world to have set up an institutional mechanism -TKDL, to protect its traditional knowledge and to prevent grant of wrong patents," 

-Vinod Kumar Gupta, Head of TKDL told PTI.

He said India will share its experience in protecting traditional knowledge from being used for acquiring patents at the three day conference, which will also be attended by Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

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Siddha Literature at the Library of Congress

Hundreds of books have been cataloged and available online at the The Library of Congress, The catalog can be accessed by everyone which is having famous books in Siddha Literature like  

An̲upōka vaittiya navanītam (அனுபோக வைத்திய நவநீதம்) by Pā. Mukammatu Aptullā Cāyapu. (பா.அப்துல்லா சாயபு)

Siddha pharmacopoeia of India.

Akastiyar 12000, en̲n̲um, Perunūl kāviyam

Citta vaittiya tiraṭṭu = Siddha pharmacopoeia, by Ka. Nā. Kuppucāmi Mutaliyār, Ka. Cu. Uttamarāyan̲.

In the name of Akattiyar itself 36 books have been cataloged! 

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Massive health boost with Integrative Medicine

At least 10,000 people in 10 neighbouring villages at Vagat in Hoskote will soon enjoy a sustainable health system. Children here will not only be taught yoga at school, but all villagers will have access to an integrated health system, including homeopathy, Unani, Siddha, Ayurveda, Naturopathy, Yoga and much more. 

The Rural Holistic Health Centre at Vagat is a first of its kind in rural India. The foundation stones for this centre and also the Soukya International Institute of Holistic and Integrative Medicine were unveiled on Sunday at the Soukya health centre in Whitefield. 

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Traditional knowledge meet on next month

Geneva-headquartered WIPO is responsible for promoting and protecting intellectual property rights worldwide. The World Intellectual Property Organisation, a specialised UN agency, along with Indian government will organise a three-day meet on traditional knowledge, including ayurveda, siddha and unani, next month. The meeting, to be held here, would help in creating more awareness about intellectual property rights and patents, that are crucial for protecting traditional knowledge.

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Relax ban on Indian Medicine, herbal drugs

India is not taking European Union's ban on the sale of its over-the-counter Indian Medicine and herbal drugs across Europe from May 1 lying down. A delegation of officials from India's department of Ayush and commerce visited Brussels in end-January to persuade EU to relax its decision by another 10 years. According to EU's Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD), companies making herbal products will have to provide clinical data to demonstrate its safety through use of those products within the EU for a minimum of 30 or 15 years within the EU, and 30 years outside the Union.  

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CRISM launches efforts to get wider acceptance to Indian medicines abroad

Mississippi-based Centre for Research in Indian Systems of Medicine (CRISM) has launched a process to ensure scientific validation and wider acceptance to Indian systems of medicines through collaborative efforts, in America and other countries.

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Herbal products will be banned from EU soon.

Thousands of kilometres away from their fractious border, India and China face a common threat. From May 1, a Brussels diktat known as the herbal directive, will effectively outlaw ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicines (TCM) from the 27-member countries of the European Union.

The directive in question was adopted in 2004 but it granted a seven-year grace period to manufacturers of herbal medicines to register, a deadline that expires on April 30.

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"Sowa Rigpa" got recognition among Indian systems of medicine

“Sowa-Rigpa” commonly known as Amchi system of medicine is one of the oldest, Living and well documented medical tradition of the world. It has been popularly practice in Tibet, Magnolia, Bhutan, some parts of China, Nepal, Himalayan regions of India and few parts of former Soviet Union etc..

History

There are various schools of thought about the origin of this medical tradition, some scholars believes that it is originated from India, some says China and others consider it to be originated from Tibetitself. The majority of theory and practice of Sowa-Rigpa is similar to “Ayurveda” . The first Ayurvedic influence came to Tibet during 3rd century AD but it became popular only after 7th centuries with the approach of Buddhism to Tibet. There after this trend of exportation of Indian medical literature, along with Buddhism and other Indian art and sciences were continued till early 19th century. India being the birth place of Buddha and Buddhism has always been favorite place for learning Buddhist art and culture for Tibetan students; lots of Indian scholars were also invited to Tibet for prorogation of Buddhism and other Indian art and sciences. This long association with India had resulted in translation and preservation of thousands of Indian literature on various subjects like religion, sciences, arts, culture and language etc. in Tibetan language. Out of these around twenty-five text related to medicine are also preserved in both canonical and non-canonical forms of Tibetan literatures. Many of these knowledge were further enriched in Tibet with the knowledge and skills of neighboring countries and their own ethnic knowledge. “Sowa-Rigpa” (Science of healing) is one of the classic examples of it.Gyud-Zi (four tantra) the fundamental text book of this medicine was first translated from India and enriched in Tibet with its own folklore and other medical tradition like Chinese and Persian etc. The impact of Sowa-Rigpa along with Buddhism and other Tibetan art and sciences were spread in neighboring Himalayan regions. In India this system has been practiced in Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh,Darjeeling (West Bengal), Lahaul & Spiti (Himachal Pradesh) and Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir etc. In 2010 Sowa-Rigpa got its legal recognition among Indian Systems of Medicine under the Department of AYUSH^[1][2].

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