Author: Dr Sanjeev Rastogi

For many, Ayurveda is a folklore — it is a traditional and empirical health care practice that was in vogue during the time when rational scientific understanding of health, pathogenesis, disease and cure was out of sight. Now, when the health care science has reached its zenith through advances made via experimentally-driven robust evidence, it seems logical to view the traditional health wisdom as a bygone entity with only historical relevance in the contemporary context. It is beyond doubt that the modern health care system — due to its precision, predictability, reproducibility and dependability — has clear advantages over traditional…

Like political slogans destined to have a short life span and memory, ‘Health for All’ from the highly acclaimed Alma-Ata Declaration of 1978 could not achieve much. A slogan given with much fanfare in Alma-Ata in Kazakhstan (then under the erstwhile USSR) by WHO in its conference from September 6-12, 1978, is seemingly losing its meaning and relevance in the world with prevailing inequity referring to health standards and care. Looking back at the debate of Health for All, we see that the initial goal of bringing “an acceptable level of health for all the people of the world by…