Comment by Riaz Haq on July 19, 2016 at 10:14pm

In #Modi's #Hindu #India, cow #urine can sell for more than #milk. #BJP

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ct-india-cow-urine-industry-...

 

India-trained veterinarian Navneet Dhand, who is an associate professor in veterinary biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of Sydney, points to three diseases prevalent in India that could potentially be transmitted to people in the raw urine of infected cows: leptospirosis, which can cause meningitis and liver failure; arthritis-causing brucellosis; and Q-fever, which can cause pneumonia and chronic inflammation of the heart.

 

That's not dissuading Jain's Cow Urine Therapy Health Clinic, which buys 25,000 liters (6,600 gallons) of cow urine a month from a dozen gaushalas. Virendar Kumar Jain, who founded the 15-doctor practice in the central Indian city of Indore, said his center has administered urine-derived medicines to 1.2 million patients over the past two decades for ailments from cancer to endocrine disorders, such as diabetes.

 

His staff field inquiries from 4,000 online patients daily, Jain said. Consumers can also buy the products via e-commerce websites, such as Amazon. He estimates cow attendants can make 1,200 rupees a month from the sale of a cow's liquid waste, which can easily pay for the beast's upkeep.

 

Urine distillate sells for $1.20 to $1.50 (80 to 100 rupees) a liter, says Balkrishna of Patanjali.

 

Still, the value of cow urine is not a great incentive for keeping unproductive cows until their dying day, said Pankaj Navani, a former engineer whose 300-cow Binsar Farms produces 2,200 liters of milk a day. The lifespan of a cow is about 15 years, though most stop producing milk years earlier.

 

Navani's herd, established in 2012, is still relatively young and he's yet to face the challenge of what to do with his former milkers, he said. "A more logical policy approach is required to deal with the issue in general," Navani said.

Comment by Riaz Haq on August 28, 2016 at 10:03pm

Why #cow #urine can be as valuable as #milk in #India http://nbcnews.to/2bXUjyo via @nbcnews

Vishal Gupta, 37, gave up his job to become a full-time practitioner of cow urine therapy and attended a cow medicine training school in the district of Kanchipuram, southern India, before launching a store selling products made from cow urine.

"Cow is the only animal whose everything has medicinal value," he said. "From milk and dung to urine, everything can be used for a medicinal purpose."

While the belief that cows have curative powers has been part of Hindu practices in India for centuries, these traditions got a big boost when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected in 2014.

Some leaders of Modi's rightwing Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) advocate cow urine as a cure for all kinds of illnesses — including cancer — and cow urine therapy appears to be taking off.

In fact, cow urine typically trades for as much as $25 per gallon, compared to 25 cents per gallon of its milk.

Versions that are boiled and condensed, sweetened, or have added herbs are sold internationally on Amazon under the Hindi name "gomutra ark."

All doctors contacted for this story declined to comment on whether cow urine was an effective cure for any disease.

However, devotees swear by it.

Ajay Dube, a 54-year-old jewelry-maker, came to Vishal Gupta for advice on how to treat intestinal bloating caused by inhaling gas from the acids used to clean gold.

He believes the recommended solution of two teaspoons of cow urine mixed with herbs and berries cured his problem.

"When I first tasted it, it was very bad but I got used to it in few days and in one month's time my gas problem was over and also my appetite increased," Dube said.

Vishal Gupta has entered a business partnership with Gyanendra Kumar, a farmer turned entrepreneur who wakes every morning at 4 a.m. to fill large pails with urine from his cows.

The urine then is boiled and condensed to make the "ark" extract. Last month, one of India's biggest cow shelters began producing 10,000 liters of ark a day at a production facility inaugurated by the health minister, and similar sites are springing up all over the country.

And it's not just medicine — other products made from cow urine including insulin substitute and mouthwash.

Reverence for cow urine has become a political issue in India, where hindus worship cows as "gau mata" — "mother of all." Hindus seek nourishment through milk, dung and urine but almost never cow meat — they regard the cow as sacred and many see its consumption as an abomination.

Since the BJP was elected, a raft of cow-protection laws were implemented as were vociferous demands for their strict enforcement.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 19, 2016 at 10:50am

#India's #Modi Government Promoting 'Cancer Curing' Cow Urine to The World. #BJP #Hindu https://sputniknews.com/asia/201612191048747631-india-research-cow/ … via @SputnikInt

The Indian government is planning to support and promote large-scale research on medicinal properties of cow urine by infusing ancient knowledge with modern science at the upcoming Cow Science University.
New Delhi (Sputnik) – If you are in India, do not be alarmed if someone suggests you to gulp down cow urine to cure a fever or joint ache. Cow urine, commonly known as ‘gomutra’ is used in many Indian cultures for therapeutic purposes. Concoctions having cow urine as the main ingredient are mentioned in the Ayurveda (the traditional Hindu system of medicine) as miracle medicine for a number of diseases including cancer.

The Bharatiya Janata Party– led Indian Government hopes to introduce this elixir to the world by promoting large scale research to validate its medicinal properties. A recent workshop held at New Delhi’s prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) witnessed a number of research proposals floated by scientists and medical practitioners. Sources in the Ministry of Human Resource Development told Sputnik that the government is seriously considering one of the proposals that envisage setting up of a ‘Gow Vigyan Vishwavidyalaya’ (Cow Science University). Research at the university would mainly be geared towards validating cancer curing properties of Panchgavya- a concoction of cow urine, cow dung, milk and milk products. The government has set up a steering committee that would examine all the 40 proposals floated at the workshop and shortlist some for further action. The proposed research would be supported and funded by not only India’s Ministry of Health but also the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development and the Indian Council of Medical Research. Dr RS Chauhan of College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Uttarakhand, claims that his research on cow urine has revealed that certain components help in enhancing immunity and kills cancer. If approved, he will take the research further to test its effects on humans. Cow is revered as a holy animal in India by Hindus. It has been a priority for the Narendra Modi led government to protect this bovine creature and support industries derived from its waste. The government has spent around $87 million on cow shelters, ban on cow slaughter and sale of cow meat and tightened measures to stop the illicit sale of cattle to neighboring countries. The increased protection and reverence given to cow has even led to inter-faith conflict in recent times. 

Read more: https://sputniknews.com/asia/201612191048747631-india-research-cow/

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 19, 2016 at 4:35pm

#Cow pee on sale on http://Amazon.com #India #Hindu https://www.amazon.com/Godhan-Purified-Urine-Distilled-Gomutra/dp/B... … Godhan Ark (Purified Cow's Urine or Distilled Cow Urine), Gomutra Ark

Price: $19.50 & FREE Shipping

Note: Not eligible for Amazon Prime.

Only 13 left in stock.

Expected to arrive after Christmas. Need a gift quickly? Give the gift of Prime or email a gift card.

Get it as soon as Jan. 19 - Feb. 8 when you choose Standard at checkout.

Ships from and sold by Organic Push.

Patanjali Gomutra

New (2) from $14.50 + $4.49 shipping

Comment by Riaz Haq on June 11, 2017 at 9:17am

Reflections on India  by  Sean Paul Kelley   Sean Paul Kelley is a travel writer, former radio host, and before that, an asset manager for a Wall Street investment bank that is still (barely) alive. He recently left a fantastic job in Singapore working for Solar Winds, a software company based out of Austin, to travelaround the world for a year or two. He founded The Agonist, in 2002, which is still considered the top international affairs, culture and news destination for progressives. He is also the Global Correspondent for The Young Turks, on satellite radio and Air America.     If you are Indian, or of Indian descent, I must preface this post with a clear warning: you are not going to like what I have to say. My criticisms may be very hard to stomach. But consider them as the hard words and loving advice of a good friend. Someone who is being honest with you and wants nothing from you.   These criticisms apply to all of India except Kerala and the places I didn’t visit, except that I have a feeling it applies to all of India.    Lastly, before anyone accuses me of Western Cultural Imperialism, let me say this: if this is what India and Indians want, then, who am I to tell them differently.   Take what you like and leave the rest.   In the end it doesn’t really matter, as I get the sense that Indians, at least many upper class Indians, don’t seem to care and the lower classes just don’t know any better, what with Indian culture being so intense and pervasive on the sub-continent.    But, here goes, nonetheless.   India is a mess. It’s that simple, but it’s also quite complicated.   I’ll start with what I think are Indias’ four major problems – the four most preventing India from becoming a developing nation – and then move to some of the ancillary ones.     First:  Pollution.   In my opinion the filth, squalor and all around pollution, indicates a marked lack of respect for India by Indians.  I don’t know how cultural the filth is, but it’s really beyond anything I have ever   encountered.  At times the smells, trash, refuse and excrement are like a garbage dump.    Right next door to the Taj Mahal was a pile of trash that smelled so bad, was so foul as to almost ruin the entire Taj experience. Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai to a lesser degree, were so very polluted as to make me physically ill.  Sinus infections, ear infection, bowels churning was an all too common experience in India. Dung, be it goat, cow or human fecal matter, was common on the streets.  In major tourist areas filth was everywhere, littering the sidewalks, the roadways, you name it.    Toilets in the middle of the road, men urinating and defecating anywhere, in broad daylight.    Whole villages are plastic bag wastelands.   Roadsides are choked by it.   Air quality that can hardly be called quality.   Far too much coal and far to few unleaded vehicles on the road.    The measure should be how dangerous the air is for ones’ health, not how good it is.    People casually throw trash in the streets, on the roads.   The only two cities that could be considered sanitary, in my journey, were Trivandrum – the capital of Kerala – and Calicut.   I don’t know why this is, but I can assure you that, at some point, this pollution will cut into Indias’ productivity, if it already hasn’t.   The pollution will hobble Indias’ growth path, if that indeed is what the country wants. (Which I personally doubt, as India is far too conservative a country, in the small ‘c’ sense.)   The second issue, infrastructure, can be divided into four subcategories: Roads, Rails, Ports and the Electric Grid.   The Electric Grid is a joke.   Load shedding is all too common, everywhere in India.  Wide swathes of the country spend much of the day without the electricity they actually pay for.    Without regular electricity, productivity, again, falls.    The Ports are a joke. Antiquated, out of date, hardly even appropriate for the mechanized world of container ports, more in line with the days of longshoremen and the like.  Roads are an equal disaster. I only saw one elevated highway that would be considered decent in Thailand, much less Western Europe or America and I covered fully two-thirds of the country during my visit.   There are so few dual carriage-way roads as to be laughable.   There are no traffic laws to speak of and, if there are, they are rarely obeyed, much less enforced (another sideline is police corruption).   A drive that should take an hour takes three.   A drive that should take three takes nine.   The buses are at least thirty years old, if not older and, generally, in poor mechanical repair, belching clouds of poisonous smoke and fumes.                                                                                                                        Everyone in India, or who travels in India, raves about the railway system.   Rubbish!  It’s awful!   When I was there in 2003 and then late 2004 it was decent.    But, in the last five years, the traffic on the rails has grown so quickly that once again, it is threatening productivity. Waiting in line just to ask a question now takes thirty minutes.   Routes are routinely sold out three and four days in advance now, leaving travelers stranded with little option except to take the decrepit and dangerous buses.    At least fifty million people use the trains a day in India. 50 million people! Not surprising that wait lists of 500 or more people are common now.    The rails are affordable and comprehensive, but, they are overcrowded and what with budget airlines popping up in India like sadhus in an ashram in the middle and lowers classes are left to deal with the overutilized rails and quality suffers.     No one seems to give a shit.                                                             Seriously, I just never have the impression that the Indian government really cares.   Too interested in buying weapons from Russia, Israel and the US, I guess.     The last major problem in India is an old problem and can be divided into two parts: that’ve been two sides of the same coin since government was invented: bureaucracy and corruption.    It take triplicates to register into a hotel.   To get a SIM card for ones’ phone is like wading into a jungle of red-tape and photocopies one is not likely to emerge from in a good mood, much less satisfied with customer service.                                                           Getting train tickets is a terrible ordeal, first you have to find the train number, which takes 30 minutes, then you have to fill in the form, which is far from easy, then you have to wait in line to try and make a reservation, which takes 30 minutes at least and if you made a single mistake on the form, back you go to the end of the queue, or what passes for a queue in India.    The government is notoriously uninterested in the problems of the commoners. Too busy fleecing the rich, or trying to get rich themselves in some way, shape or form.   Take the trash, for example, civil rubbish collection authorities are too busy taking kickbacks from the wealthy to keep their areas clean that they don’t have the time, manpower, money or interest in doing their job.    Rural hospitals are perennially understaffed as doctors pocket the fees the government pays them, never show up at the rural hospitals and practice in the cities instead.     I could go on for quite some time about my perception of India and its problems, but in all seriousness, I don’t think anyone in India really cares.   And that, to me, is the biggest problem. India is too conservative a society to want to change in any way.   Mumbai, Indias’ financial capital, is about as filthy, polluted and poor as the worst city imaginable in Vietnam, or Indonesia – and being more polluted than Medan, in Sumatra, is no easy task. The biggest rats I have ever seen were in Medan ! One would expect a certain amount of, yes, I am going to use this word, "backwardness," in a country that hasn’t produced so many Nobel Laureates, nuclear physicists, imminent economists and entrepreneurs.    But, India has all these things and what have they brought back to India with them?   Nothing.    The rich still have their servants, the lower castes are still there to do the dirty work and so the country remains in stasis. It’s a shame. Indians and India have many wonderful things to offer the world, but I’m far from sanguine that India will amount to much in my lifetime.   Now, you have it, call me a cultural imperialist, a spoiled child of the West and all that.    But remember, I’ve been there. I’ve done it and I’ve seen 50 other countries on this planet and none, not even Ethiopia, have as long and gargantuan a laundry list of problems as India does.    And, the bottom line is, I don’t think India really cares. Too complacent and too conservative.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 8, 2017 at 7:18am

Indian scientists urged to speak out about pseudoscience
Cancelled astrology workshop prompts calls for researchers to be vigilant about stamping out unscientific beliefs.

T.V Padma
07 November 2017

https://www.nature.com/news/indian-scientists-urged-to-speak-out-ab...


Alarm in the Indian scientific community over anti-science policies and programmes has been brewing for some time. Several scientists who spoke with Nature are reluctant to comment publicly about it for fear of jeopardizing their jobs. Others took part in the March for Science organized by the 7,000-member Breakthrough Science Society in August in around 40 Indian cities, in part to protest the government’s support for ideas not yet backed by science. One area of concern, says Banerjee, is the government’s push for a national research programme on the health and other benefits of a combination of five cow products, known as panchgavya.

The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, hosted a two-day workshop last December to discuss ways to validate research on panchgavya, which was supported by India’s Department of Science and Technology, Department of Biotechnology, and Council of Scientific and Industrial research (CSIR), and inaugurated by India’s science minister Harsh Vardhan.

According to IIT Delhi’s website, Vardhan, who is a physician, “emphasised that use of panchgavya in practice and in daily routines will help to address the pressing global issues like climate change, resistance development, malnourishment, global health etc”.

Following the workshop, India’s science ministry formed a national steering committee to initiate a national programme on the topic.

Supporters of this research say that cow products should be considered part of India’s vast traditional knowledge base. But critics say that such unverified theories are pseudoscience, and that singling out the benefits of cow products is part of a larger political agenda by Hindus, for whom the cow is a sacred animal.

They also argue that research on topics such as panchgavya should be handled in a neutral manner rather than as a way of promoting traditional knowledge. Rahul Siddharthan, a computation biologist at the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in Chennai, says that the government must accept that any research involving traditional hypotheses about health could potentially refute those hypotheses. “Refutability is the essence of science,” he says.

Comment by Riaz Haq on October 3, 2018 at 10:33am

#Cow #Dung #Soap Is Cleaning Up In #India. Soap includes cow dung and cow #urine as ingredients. #Hindus believe cow products like dung, milk and urine have healing properties. #Modi #BJP #Hindutva
https://n.pr/2DRLaZx

The shelves in Umesh Soni's little store in downtown Mumbai are neatly stacked with soaps. There are handmade translucent bars, brightly colored circular soaps in tropical variants and square black bathing bars. It looks like any other soap shop.

Except all the soaps include cow dung and cow urine as ingredients.

Why make soap from this stuff?

Cows are sacred in Hinduism. Ayurveda, the ancient Indian science of life, says that cow products like dung, milk and urine have healing properties. Many rural Indian homes use cow dung to pave floors. And many Hindus believe drinking cow urine is good for health.

Boxes of soap from Cowpathy Care. Cow dung is dried and turned into a powder, then added to the bars.
Sushmita Pathak/NPR
Soni, 35, started making cow dung soaps in 2008, but he's certainly not the first to use these items in beauty products. Initially, his customers were devotees at a Hindu temple in Mumbai. Today, the microbiologist and MBA graduate sells to customers from a dozen countries.

In 2012, he launched his own cow-based beauty products line. Cowpathy Care, as it's called, offers 80 products, including cow dung soaps, cow milk creams and an under-eye gel made from cow urine.

And the market is growing. In 2014, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power and made it a special mission to elevate the role of the cow. There have been calls to ban eating beef in many states. Cow protection squads have popped up. Angry mobs have lynched people suspected of smuggling cows.

And bovine merchandise is on a roll. Stores in India are being flooded with cow-based products, from soaps to toothpaste.

Comment by Riaz Haq on September 7, 2019 at 8:32am

Like #Nazi #Hitler in #Germany , #Modi’s #India to produce ‘highly intellectual’ #Hindu children by giving cow urine to pregnant women. #Hindutva #India #Eugenics

https://theprint.in/india/how-a-govt-body-plans-to-produce-highly-i...

Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog wants to produce panchgavya drug using cow urine. It says pregnant women will give birth to ‘smart kids’ if they take the drug regularly.

The Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog is working with the Ministry of AYUSH to produce panchgavya drug using cow urine and dung that it says will help develop “highly intellectual” children.

The commission has claimed that pregnant women may be able to give birth to “smart, highly intellectual and healthy children” if they consume the drug regularly.

The drug will be made using cow urine, dung, milk, ghee and curd, the commission’s chairman Vallabhbhai Kathiria told ThePrint.

The Aayog was set up by the Narendra Modi government in February for the purpose of conservation and protection of cattle population in the country.

Kathiria, who is a former BJP MP from Gujarat, said that shastras and Ayurveda texts also vouch for panchgavya drug, which is a mixture of five cow products.

“Shastras and Ayurveda texts say that if pregnant women consume the drug, they may produce smart, highly intellectual and healthy children,” he said, adding that they have sought the AYUSH ministry’s help in producing the drug on a large scale.

He also said the AYUSH ministry and the newly-formed Ministry of Animal Husbandry will seek the cooperation of the MSME ministry in producing and marketing the drug.

Kathiria added that once they produce the drug on a large scale, they will appoint vaidyas (practitioners of Ayurvedic medicine) in villages so that they prescribe them to pregnant women.

Kathiria said the commission’s responsibility also includes development and conservation of indigenous cow breeds, and, therefore, it has already selected 44 indigenous breeds.

Among the breeds, Gir and Kankrej of Gujarat, Sahiwal of Punjab, Gangatiri and Red Sindhi of Uttar Pradesh, Malvi of Madhya Pradesh and Krishna Valley and Vechur of south India are the prominent ones.

Kathiria further said that there is a problem of semen-shortage, which forces the government to import semen of bulls from other countries. The only way to solve the problem is by opening at least one semen-production centre and one mating centre in each state, he added.

“Semen-production centres are already operating in Bhopal and Visakhapatnam where semen of good breeds of indigenous bulls is produced with the help of genetic breeding,” he said.

In this regard, the commission is working with the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, which is gravely concerned about the dwindling population of indigenous cows, Kathiria said.

Minister of State in the Ministry of Animal Husbandry Pratap Chandra Sarangi told ThePrint that farmers are no longer interested in keeping indigenous cows due to higher milk production capacity of Jersey cows.

But due to high medicinal value of indigenous cow milk, increasing their population has been one of the top priorities of the Ministry of Animal Husbandry, Sarangi said.

The central government is also planning a scheme in coordination with the state governments to subsidise procurement of indigenous cows by farmers, he added.

Plan to set up gaushalas on PPP model across India
The commission is working on a plan to set up gaushalas (cowsheds), similar to the one built in Gwalior, which operates on a PPP model and produces phenyl, pesticides using cow dung and urine.

“India imports potassium worth Rs 7,000-15,000 crore every year as it is used as a fertiliser, but if all the gaushalas can produce pesticides on their own, it would save the government a lot of money,” said Kathiria.

The former MP said they have already written to the state governments on how to come up with such gaushalas and will soon convene a meeting in this regard.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 25, 2020 at 6:45pm

More than 500 scientists have asked #India's #Modi government to withdraw a call for #research to study benefits of cow dung, urine, and milk. #Hindutva #science #BJP https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/indian-scientists-decry-inf...

More than 500 scientists have asked the Indian government to withdraw a call for research proposals on the “uniqueness” of indigenous cows and the curative properties of cow urine, dung, and milk, including potential cancer treatments. In an online letter, the researchers say the call is “unscientific” and a misdirection of public money at a time when research in India is already facing a financial crunch.

Cows are considered sacred in Hinduism, and some petitioners see the research program as another effort by the Indian government, run by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), to validate faith-based pseudoscience. The call does not appear to be shaped by “objective scientific inquiry,” but rather “aimed at confirming existing beliefs,” says Aniket Sule, a reader at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education who helped draft the letter. “They should prove that there is some merit in pursuing this research before throwing money at it,” Sule says.

The call for proposals, issued 14 February, is part of a larger funding program of the Department of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa Rigpa and Homoeopathy, and other government agencies. It invites projects on five research themes including: “cowpathy,” the use of cow products for medicine and health, including anticancer and diabetes drugs; the use of cow products for agriculture, such as in pesticides; cow-based products like shampoo, hair oil, and floor cleaners; and research on the nutritional value of cow milk. A major aim is the “scientific investigation of uniqueness of pure Indigenous Indian cows.”

In their letter, scientists note that the call presumes “special physiological status to select breeds of only one species,” adding that “to begin a project with such presumptions is prima facie unscientific.” Money under the scheme could be “wasted to ‘investigate’ imaginary qualities derived from religious scriptures,” they said.

It’s not the first time the current government has promoted research on the cow, or more broadly, made scientific claims for unproven traditional beliefs. In 2017, the government set up a committee to vet research proposals to scientifically validate “panchgavya,” a concoction of cow milk, curd, ghee, dung, and urine held by Ayurveda texts to have curative properties. Last year, BJP Member of Parliament Sadhvi Pragya was widely criticised by oncologists when she claimed that cow urine cured her breast cancer.

The latest call comes at a time when government grants are already being delayed, scientists say, with research projects getting stalled and young researchers not receiving their monthly stipends on time. In this context, “actively canvassing proposals under such dubious scheme is even more infuriating,” their letter says.

Sule and others have appealed to the ministry to withdraw the current proposal and reframe it “to encourage open inquiry.” They have also appealed to scientists across the country to use National Science Day on 28 February to educate the general public.

Comment by Riaz Haq on November 8, 2020 at 9:08pm

#India latest ‘boycott China’ move involves #cow dung #Diwali lights. A campaign is urging patriotic #Indians celebrating the Festival of Lights to swap cheap Chinese LEDs for oil lamps made out of cow dung. #China #Modi #Hindutva
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3108720/indias-late... via @scmpnews

India’s latest salvo against China is not to be sniffed at. Ahead of Diwali, the country’s biggest religious festival, a campaign is urging patriotic Indians to swap once popular, cheap Chinese-manufactured festive lights for environmentally friendly oil lamps made from cow dung.
Behind the campaign is the Rashtriya Kamdhenu Aayog (RKA), a group set up last year to conserve the nation’s population of cows, viewed as sacred by Hindus – India’s majority religion. The RKA hopes to produce some 330 million oil lamps, known as diyas, each of which will cost between 4 rupees and 20 rupees (US$0.05 to US$0.25).


More than 15 states – including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh – have agreed to be part of the campaign and 300,000 cow dung diyas are to be lit in Ayodhya, in Uttar Pradesh, and another 100,000 diyas in the holy city of Varanasi.


In recent years, cheap Chinese-made LED lights have flooded the market and on some accounts India imports 10 billion rupees (US$134 million) worth of the lights from China and a few other countries every year.

However, growing tensions between India and China – whose troops have been locked in a sometimes deadly stand-off along the countries’ disputed Himalayan border for the past six months – have led New Delhi to rethink its business dealings with Beijing. Since the beginning of the stand-off it has banned 218 Chinese apps and terminated multiple contracts with Chinese companies, while Indian traders have launched campaigns to boycott Chinese goods.
This is not the first time the RKA, which is part of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party government’s Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairy, has proposed cow dung as a novel solution to a problem. Previously it suggested using chips made from cow dung to reduce radiation from mobile phones.

Buying goods made from dung also ensures local workers benefit. Making diyas in India has traditionally been a small-scale handicraft industry.
Among the fans of the campaign is Meenal Singh Deo, in Dhenkanal, Odisha. She has bought cow dung diyas from the Kanha Gaushala cow shelter in Jhansi, run by a team of 18 women, who are the sole bread-winners of their families.
“The dung lights are so inexpensive and eco-friendly that this year I have made a conscious attempt not to buy Chinese lights,” says the 52-year-old, who runs a heritage homestay. “I am going to use a mix of earthen lamps from potters and those made of cow dung.”
Diyas are especially popular during Diwali, a Hindu festival which symbolises the victory of light over darkness and good over evil. Nearly eight in 10 of India’s 1.3 billion population are Hindus, though Sikhs and Jains also celebrate Diwali.




-----------

Despite the campaign, Chinese-made LED lights still hold an appeal for consumers. As Rakesh Kumar, a dealer in lights in Chennai, puts it: “People prefer Chinese products because of their low cost and variety.”
At Delhi’s Bhagirath Palace, the biggest electrical goods market in India, with more than 2,000 wholesalers, traders deal in all kinds of lights but the majority are imported from China.
Satish Gupta, a dealer, says the rope lights he sells are made in China and are still popular. He sells a roll of 25 metres for about US$10 and also sells a packet of 15 electric Chinese-made diyas for about US$2.
“We still see a demand for these lights as they are convenient, easy to use and need no oil or maintenance,” he says.

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