Good to see this on the BBC as it's something I think few Western skeptics get to see much of.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46778879
Sadly this bullshit has all too real repercussions. A sweet, gentle guy I knew got sucked into this fatuous make-believe and started promulgating this kind of Hindu nationalist bullshit on Facebook. When he found out he had cancer, rather than use 'fake Western science', he instead opted for Vedic healing and died a few months later just 30 years old.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-46778879
India's junior education minister Satyapal Singh in 2017 said that airplanes were first mentioned in the ancient Hindu epic, Ramayana. He added that the first working plane was invented by an Indian named Shivakar Babuji Talpade eight years before the Wright brothers
Also in 2017, the education minister for the western state of Rajasthan said it was important to "understand the scientific significance" of the cow, claiming it was the only animal in the world to both inhale and exhale oxygen
In 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told medical staff at a Mumbai hospital that the story of the Hindu god Ganesha - whose elephant head is attached to a human body - showed cosmetic surgery existed in ancient India
Geologist Ashu Khosla said that Hindu god Brahma discovered dinosaurs and documented them in ancient Indian scriptures while presenting a research paper at the Indian Science Congress on Sunday
Lawmaker Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank prompted outrage in 2014 when he said that "science is a dwarf in front of astrology". He added that astrology was "the biggest science" and that India conducted nuclear tests more than 100,000 years ago
Sadly this bullshit has all too real repercussions. A sweet, gentle guy I knew got sucked into this fatuous make-believe and started promulgating this kind of Hindu nationalist bullshit on Facebook. When he found out he had cancer, rather than use 'fake Western science', he instead opted for Vedic healing and died a few months later just 30 years old.