The Hindu : Karnataka News : Institute of traditional medicine soon

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Nov 01, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka

Institute of traditional medicine soon

Staff Reporter

Bangalore: “It may not be untrue to say that institutes of learning and research have only captured a fraction of the knowledge that exists with local communities: the approximately 2,000 medicinal plants that have come into codification, for instance, represent no more than a third of what is known traditionally,” said Darshan Shankar, Director, Foundation for the Revitalisation of Local Health Traditions (FRHLT).

Speaking here on Wednesday at the launch of “Community Knowledge Service (CKS) Asia,” a programme intended to address the challenges of rural health, livelihood improvement and biodiversity conservation, Mr. Shankar said, “There is a need to recognise centres of community knowledge and link them to institutes. While this will revitalise research, it will also empower communities.”

CKS Asia is being led in India by FRLHT and the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation with support from Ecoagricultural Partners and the United Nations Development Programme.

B.S. Sajwan, Chief Executive Officer, National Medicinal Plants Board, said that it was important to link communities with markets through value addition and micro-enterprises. He added that an institute of traditional medicine would be set up in Arunachal Pradesh by the Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani and Homeopathy, “with the intention of documenting thus far unrecognised knowledge and to take it further in terms of scientific discoveries.”

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