India is betting on traditional medicine to pull off its next big soft power coup, following the success of efforts to promote yoga around the world.
From allocating funds to organising summits and setting up research centres, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration is throwing its support behind Ayurveda – India’s traditional medicine system dating back 5,000 years. Although considered pseudoscience by some within the medical community, Ayurveda is popularly used in India to address ailments ranging from diabetes to cancer. The system of medicine, meaning “knowledge or science of life” in Sanskrit, largely focuses on prevention, with curative and therapeutic elements considered to play an auxiliary role.
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