It seems around the world being unscientific and plain stupid is a great asset for winning democratic elections. We will be horrified if a well know professional speaks such rubbish but somehow okay with the facts that such people can handle countries with multi-trillion dollar economy

I used to find some comfort in the fact that Indian politicians were in some ways better than the types of Michelle Bachman. They knew enough not to flaunt their ignorance and knew when they were out of their depth. Apparently no more.

Those people saying the same things were always there. They just get more news time nowadays.

As long as the scientific progress is not hampered, I don't really care what the PM or some enthusiasts believe in. I think it's as harmless as people believing/not believing in God.

Huge difference. These are the decision makers of the country. These are the people who are going to decide which ideas to back, which institutes and projects to fund, what to turn a blind eye to.

As the famous advert goes -- there are many thing medicines cannot cure, for everything else there is cow piss. That's what will get funded.

Apparently the reasoning goes that there are a lot of vitamins and hormones in there. Last time I checked there is a lot in mine too. I wonder why dont they line up right here.

No need for “will”s. The term is near ended. Can you support your theory with real incidents? Which research was funded, which wasn’t funded?

That would be tall task and full time work for a full group. I am a single person with an unrelated day job. That said, here's a few:

Panchgavya project, coordinated by the Indian Institute of Technology in Delhi, internally approved 34 proposals for research into panchgavya ... to make cow urine capsules

http://unnat.iitd.ac.in/index.php/Pages/display/news/urine_c...

https://thewire.in/the-sciences/cow-urine-distillate-cancer

IIT Delhi gets 50 research proposals to study benefits of cow urine under SVAROP program https://indianexpress.com/article/india/iit-delhi-gets-50-re...

"After its proposal to make floor cleaners using cow urine, the Uttar Pradesh government has decided to give a push to the use of cow urine in preparing medicines."

https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/ad...

Government undertaking research to promote use of cow urine, Lok Sabha told

https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-natio...

A non existent university gets prime ranking -- Reliance’s Jio Institute gets government’s Institution of Eminence status but it’s yet to be set up

https://scroll.in/article/885897/reliances-jio-university-ge...

India's March For Science: Fund Research, Not Study of Cow, Say Scientists.

https://www.news18.com/news/india/indias-march-for-science-f... I would rather have scientists doing science rather being forced on the street to defend science

Panchgavya has a patent from the previous regime.

IIT Delhi is not a collection of extremist morons. I would much rather take somebody betting their career on something than the random opinion on the Internet.

Ayurveda has been an established practice for a long time. Somebody needs to bet their career on disproving it or else I will continue benefiting from it.

I don’t know why you bring up Jio Institute here.

I don’t know why you missed part of your own link where the scientist says “Scientists supporting the march say the need is to recognise the actual contributions made by ancient Indians, often whitewashed by the European school of science history, rooted in the Enlightenment period. However, this is getting lost in talk of interplanetary travel and cosmetic surgery during the Vedic ages. This had been publicly denounced by Indian Nobel laureate V Ramakrishnan Anne. He even refused to attend the Indian Science Congress last year.“

This is just storm in a tea cup. I don’t remember seeing any cutbacks on any of the scientific programs. In fact some of the long awaited research programs like the neutrino lab came up.

So again what exactly was important that was cut back?

> Panchgavya has a patent from the previous regime

Patent on what ? Let me leave this for you from the same article

"Vardhan, who was a member of Parliament from the Bharatiya Janata Party then, is now minister of science and technology. But in the years after the conference, the subject received no interest from the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance, which was in power till 2014. This changed when the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance came to power that year. And in November last year, Minister of State for Ayush Shripad Yesso Naik announced in the Lok Sabha that the government intended to undertake research and academic activities to promote the use of cow urine, especially its “anti-cancer and anti-infective” properties."

No IITD aren't morons but they sure no which way the wind blows and what research topics are favorite and which projects will have funds allocated at another projects expense.

Missed nothing from the quote you pasted. I agree with it.

Re Jio Institute, that's an example of an endorsement from the topmost level possible to an university that exists on paper.

If my examples dont convince you that those are mis-allocation of funds, continuing further is moot.

In case you have a change of tastes, just a reminder mine has vitamins and hormones too. Even the PM would be most cordially welcome.

I haven't done research, but one possible explanation I heard about cow urine (organic grass fed) is in helping balancing the stomach bacteria. We as modern humans have still not fully understood the effects and side effects of gut flora completely. Even recently gut bacteria is linked to heart diseases.(#1: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/07/170711093012.h..., #2: http://sciencenordic.com/gut-bacteria-flora-linked-chronic-h...). So we definitely have a long way to go in understanding our own body, which our forefathers might have gotten a better understanding.

Cow urine is also prescribed as a drug by Ayurveda, which isn't an occult science or anything and have survived well into modern age. Several practitioners of Ayurveda used advanced surgical technologies, perhaps first in the world.

e.g.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cataract_surgery#History https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/Ancient_... https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Ancient_...

> In case you have a change of tastes, just a reminder mine has vitamins and hormones too. Even the PM would be most cordially welcomed to it.

Hahahaha, not so easy. Get a bunch of people excited about your urine and come up with some results. I will be all over it, why not?

Will you fund the research or convince the government to fund it?

Please don't drag politics into HN.. I know you can link anything to a ideology or government and start bashing it. let's not do that.

Nothing to do with politics. Everything to do with rationality. We need the likes of James Randi by the hordes here in India, especially when our own are getting bumped off frequently lately.

> I know you can link anything to a ideology

By the way I am not linking 'anything' tenuous, these are direct video quotes from the country's leadership -- the prime minister of India, and other ministers

WE WUZ ELAPHANTS!!1!

Maybe that Yakub was a foreign exchange student to IIT back in the day.