#130 Everybody Loves A Good Conspiracy Theory 🎧

<em>While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways.</em><br/><br/><em>Audio narration by </em><a target="_blank" href="https://www.ad-auris.com/"><em>Ad-Auris</em></a><em>.  </em><br/><br/><strong>India Policy Watch: The Demarcation Between Science And Ramdev  </strong><br/><br/><em>Insights on burning policy issues in India</em><br/><br/>- <em>RSJ</em><br/><br/><strong>Event 1: May 23, 2021.</strong> Yoga guru Ramdev:<br/><br/>"Everyone should progress through self-evaluation. Some allopathic doctors too consider Indian medical science, Ayurveda, yoga as <em>pseudo-science</em>, (emphasis ours) which hurts crores of people.” <br/><br/><strong>Event 2: May 29, 1919.</strong> <em>New York Times (reporting on the event on Nov 7, 1919)</em>:<br/><br/>I will connect the two events (hopefully) in a bit.<br/><br/>Take Event 1. This was Ramdev in his response to the letter he received from Dr Harsh Vardhan, the Union Minister for Health. The minister had written to Ramdev about his recent statements about allopathy and doctors. You can <a target="_blank" href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/ramdev-withdraws-statement-on-allopathy-but-says-self-evaluation-is-necessary-101621789708240.html">read more about it here</a>. <br/><br/>Dr. Vardhan was forced to write to Ramdev because of the campaign by the IMA (Indian Medical Association) against the damaging statements made Ramdev about modern medicine. Over the past year, Patanjali Ayurved, a company promoted by Ramdev, has made several claims of curing Covid-19 in seven days through its product, Coronil. He has also, at different times, called Allopathy a ‘stupid science’, falsely claimed over 10,000 allopathic doctors died after taking both doses of vaccines and blamed the global drug ‘mafia’ for conspiring against him, Ayurveda and India in that order. <br/><br/>Now you m