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Editor's note: On the evening of 23 June, Baba Ramdev appeared on one news channel after another to defend his latest subterfuge. Earlier that day, the billionaire yoga guru and Acharya Balkrishna—his closest aide and the CEO of Ramdev’s Patanjali Ayurved Ltd—had launched a “Divya Corona Kit” as “the first and foremost evidence-based Ayurvedic medicine for COVID-19”. This kit consisted of three medicines: Coronil tablets, Swasari Vati tablets and Anu Taila drops. Patanjali claimed that the natural phytochemicals in kit ingredients such as tulsi, giloy and ashwagandha guaranteed 100% recovery within seven days. Ramdev and Balkrishna knew this was a brazen claim to make in a world agonizing for a clinically tried and tested vaccine. So they swooped in. This is clinically tried and tested Ayurveda, they said, the first of its kind. They added that two hundred and eighty Indians across the country were part of research and trials, followed by 95 patients in a clinical control study. The gullible lapped up every word. The rest lambasted the Ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy). It’s one …
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