MyVoice: Views of our readers 21st August 2021

Super report by THI!

The Hans India of 20 August has done a great service in widely informing the readers about the problems now faced by indigenous medicines (specially Unani) manufacturers and dry fruit traders due to stoppage of import of raw materials from Afghanistan. All these imported materials worth nearly USD 505 million are "plant-based" and are available from Afghanistan due to their geographical//climatic/soil conditions.

In India, we have many plant-based research and development laboratories which go generally by the name of aromatic, medicinal, and economic plants who are constantly finding out possible cultivation of exotic plants under local conditions. One such well-known institution is under Council of Scientific and Industrial research (CSIR) - Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP) - with headquarters at Lucknow and one of its Regional Centres at Hyderabad. Another CSIR institute is Institute of Himalayan Bioresources Technology (IHBT), Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, who have recently cultivated Heeng (asafoetida), currently produced by Iran and Afganistan, and Monk fruit, a 100-200 times sweetener than sucrose, produced by south China. There are also a series of product-based laboratories all over India, under Indian Council of Agricultural research (ICAR).

In my opinion, there is a vast opportunity for plant-based laboratories to study cultivation of "herbals" as a general term for currently imported materials from Afghanistan. There is a good possibility of success at least in some herbals. Importers too should study the nature of imported materials and encourage sponsored research, which will go a long way in Atmanirbharta.

Prof B R Sant, Hyderabad

AP has always had non-Brahmin priests

This has reference to THI's letter, Why non-Brahmin priests?(Aug.20). It is to be clarified that in AP also from time immemorial there have been non brahmin Archakas in some temples but they had a formal training in chanting of Vedas and routine rituals. Their families are essentially Vaishnavaites and even before the separation of AP from composite Madras State, the Gurus of basically Thanjavur district used to visit their non-brahmin disciple parampara(chain) family .They used to spend a fortnight or so with their spouses and have spiritual revival retreat like get-together but it'sn't in vogue now. Tirukkoilur area of Tamilnadu has its transformed surname as Tirukkovalluri among non-Brahmin priests, serving assigned temples and/or Hindu people who need Gurus for rituals. In TS their equivalents are Mittala Ayyavarlu and so I feel TN CM Stalin's order of priests is neither distasteful nor like a desecration.

Dr T Ramadas, Visakhapatnam

Erosion of democratic values

Supreme Court described some time back that CBI as "caged parrot" (of the Centre) and so one can easily guess what would be the outcome of the CBI probe in Bengal. Similarly SIT favours state government (West Bengal poll violence: now, court monitored probe , August 20). Under these circumstances , probe in the post poll violence in West Bengal will not be free and fair and so speedy justice cannot be expected. It is a shame that relations between the Union and Bengal governments are turning murkier even after elections unmindful of pandemic. What kind of message they are sending to the nation?. It is sure that people lose confidence in democracy in the long run with the indifferent attitude of such politicians.

Kshirasagara Balaji Rao, Hyderabad