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EAGLE MOUNTAIN — John Hendrickson, grandfather, ex-Central Intelligence Agency officer and former Draper city manager, will be Eagle Mountain’s new city administrator, Mayor Don Richardson announced Tuesday night.

After months of turmoil and vacancy associated with the city’s managerial position, the Eagle Mountain City Council unani- mously ratified Hendrickson’s contract Tuesday night with no hesitation.

To Hendrickson, who agreed to step down from his position in Draper amid conflict and a “split vote” by that city’s council, the unanimous motion in Eagle Mountain came as a relief.

“It’s nice to know, at least going in, that you have that support,” Hendrickson said. “In many ways (the situation in Draper) was a situation of a very divided council. I want to be very careful with what I say, but people make choices and we made a choice. And that’s about where I want to go with that.”

Hendrickson was chosen to be city administrator over Don Bluth, city administrator in Bluffdale, who has also dealt with some controversy with his position. Eagle Mountain council members publicly interviewed both Bluth and Hendrickson about three weeks ago before formalizing their choice this week.

“There were a number of great men and women who applied for this position,” Richardson said. “We’re very fortunate to have John.”

Hendrickson, who has a master’s degree in public administration from Brigham Young University, has more than 30 years of experience in public management. He inherited the government gene from his father, who worked for the federal government for 20 years and was responsible for establishing the Environmental Protection Agency.

Hendrickson grew up in Wyoming, but he moved frequently because of his father’s employment.

Hendrickson received his undergraduate degree from BYU, before he became employed by the CIA. He also worked as a military intelligence officer during the Vietnam War.

“It’s been an interesting life.” Hendrickson said. “It’s never been dull for me. I always thought I would go into medicine or dentistry and then I got sidetracked into government. I had a professor who said, ‘I think you would be a good city manager.’ I said. ‘What’s that?’ and then here I am 30 years later.”

Hendrickson, 63, currently lives in Sandy with his wife, though he says he may move to Eagle Mountain “when the time is right.” The grandfather of 30 says he is used to “60-plus” hour work weeks.

Before coming to Eagle Mountain Hendrickson worked in city government positions in Wyoming, Idaho and California — but he’s had his eye on Eagle Mountain for awhile. After five years of working in city government in California, Hendrickson says he was drawn to come to Eagle Mountain because of its potential.

“It’s the fact that it’s a growing city,” Hendrickson said. “I’ve managed a number of fast growing cities in my career. … I always had some interest in what was going on out here and how that might develop. … There’s just lots of issues. I didn’t want to go into a position where I felt like I was vegetating. I don’t think that’s going to be the case at all here.”

The International Conference “Promotion and Development of Botanicals With International Coordination: Exploring Quality, Safety, Efficacy, and Regulations” was organized by the School of Natural Product Studies, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, India. This article presents the background, objectives, and highlights of the presentations of different plenary, oral, and poster sessions. The conference was supported by the Drug Information Association of the United States. Different organizations of the government of India such as the National Medicinal Plants Board (NMPB); Department of Ayurveda, Yoga, Unani, Siddha, and Homeopathy (AYUSH); Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR); Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR); and Defence Research Development Organization (DRDO) also supported this international event. The key topics were as follows: Developing Botanicals Through International Coordination; Exploring Traditional Medicine for Development of Herbal Drugs; Regulatory Perspective for Development of Herbals; Health Care Resources-Impact of Natural (Traditional) Medicines; Ethnobotany and Ethnopharmacology in Natural Product Development: Global Perspectives; Pharmacovigilance of Natural Health Products-Evaluating Safety and Toxicity; and Industrial Perspectives and Development of Phytomedicines. Conference attendees included a variety of stakeholders: manufacturers of raw materials, phytomedicines, pharmaceuticals, and dietary and food supplements; representatives of conventional and traditional health care systems; sellers and distributors; regulatory authorities; standard-setting organizations; contract laboratories and research organizations, nongovernmental organizations, academicians, scientists, and health care practitioners. The conference also provided educational opportunities for pharmacists, pharmacognosists, physicians, phytochemists, botanists, ethnobotanists, ethnopharmacologists, pharmacologists, toxicologists, and others involved in the research, evaluation, development, and marketing of botanicals and natural products for use in health care. More than 350 delegates from different countries, including scientists/researchers from the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Brazil, The Netherlands, France, South Africa, Iran, Thailand, Fiji, and India, participated in the conference from different fields of herbal research. As Director of the School of Natural Products Studies, I was the organizing secretary of this international event.

BACKGROUND FOR ORGANIZING THE CONFERENCE

This conference was suggested through the Natural Health Products Special Interest Area Community (NHP-SIAC) of Drug Information Association (DIA). As a long-standing member of the DIA and frequent speaker and participant at DIA’s annual US convention, I volunteered to chair a meeting sponsored by DIA on natural health products (NHPs) in India. Jadavpur University is one of the best universities in India, and the School of Natural Product Studies (SNPS) is one of the pioneering organizations in the field of NHP development and took special interest to organize this international event in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB), the premier research institute in eastern India under the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Government of India.

Botanicals or phytomedicines have always been a major component of the traditional systems of healing in India. Besides widespread use of botanicals as medicinal products in developing countries, such products are becoming part of the integrative health care systems of industrialized nations; they are now known as complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs). Botanicals are unique products with special concerns regarding sourcing, lot-to-lot consistency, safety, and efficacy. The testing conducted on single chemical entities may also not be appropriate for botanicals because of their heterogeneous nature. However, botanicals may offer novel therapeutic potential not achievable with mainstream therapeutic interventions alone. Currently, there is an urgent need for international collaboration in the development and promotion of operational methodologies that should include variety of standard operating procedures addressing the nomenclature, quality, safety, and efficacy of these products when used as phytomedicines. In addition, there is a need for coordination and harmonization of regulations related to research and development of natural products as both pharmaceuticals and food supplements.

Safety and efficacy of the Natural Health Products (NHP) is always a cause of concern to promote and rationalize their use. Quality control of botanicals, validated processes of manufacturing, customer awareness and post marketing surveillance are the key points which could ensure the safety and efficacy of NHP. Currently there is an urgent need for international collaboration in the development and promotion of operational methodologies that should include variety of standard operating procedures addressing the quality, safety, and efficacy of these products, when used as phytomedicines.

India has an ancient heritage of traditional medicine. The materia medica of India provides a great deal of information on the folklore practices and traditional aspects of therapeutically important natural products. Indian traditional medicine is based on various systems including Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani. The evaluation of these drugs is primarily based on phytochemical, pharmacological, and allied approaches including various instrumental techniques such as chromatography, microscopy, and others. These traditional systems of Indian medicine are each unique but there is a common thread in their fundamental principles and practices. With the emerging worldwide interest in adopting and studying traditional systems and exploiting their potential based on different health care systems, the evaluation of the rich heritage of traditional medicine is essential. The government and the private sector are exploring all of the possibilities for the perfect evaluation of these systems in order to effectively adopt the therapeutic approaches available in original systems of medicine as well as to help in generating data to put these products on the national health program.

There is tremendous growth of traditional systems of health care globally, and Indian traditional systems of medicine based on different aspects of folklore medicines have also developed a lot. There are several constraints in the proper development of Indian traditional systems of medicine:

* Lack of awareness that Ayurveda, Siddha, and Unani are basically systems of health care aimed at maintaining the normal health of human beings,

* Inadequate knowledge and lack of updating knowledge about products,

* The rules and regulations imposed for traditional medicine are almost the same as those for chemical based drugs; they are difficult to follow,

* Availability of raw materials: Already 29 plants and their value added products have been banned by the government of India as endangered plants. In addition to conservation of the environment, conservation of traditional systems of medicine is equally important by following different other techniques, which need to be exercised.

Considering these problems and prospects, India has had a great heritage of traditional systems of medicine since time immemorial. India is one of the leading biodiversity centers with 45000 different plant species. The country has 15000 to 18000 flowering plants, 23000 fungi, 2500 algae, 1600 lichens, 1800 bryophytes, and 13 million microorganisms in its biodiversity region (10). Out of these strong resources 1250 are included in traditional medicinal practices. Thus, India has a rich heritage of its own as far as the natural products and particularly medicinal plants are concerned because of its wide diversity in soil and climatic condition and rich flora and fauna. Evaluation of Indian traditional medicine is possible through the proper exploitation and exploration of the wide biodiversity and great ancient treatises of traditional medicine in the light of modern tools and techniques.

Acknowlegments-The author is thankful to the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), Government of India, New Delhi for providing financial support under the Career Development for Young Teachers Award (F No. 1-52/CD/CA (08)/98-99). Thanks are due to the Drug Information Association for providing the financial assistance to present the article at the DIA 36th Annual Meeting, June 11-15, 2000 in San Diego, California.

REFERENCES

1. Narayana DBA, Katayar CK, Brindavanam NB. Original system: search, research or re-search. IDMA Bulletin. 1998;29(17):413-416.

2. Sastry VVS, ed. Tridosha Theory. Kottakkal, India: Arya Vaidya Sala; 1996:3-6.

3. Pillai NK, ed. History of Siddha Medicine. Chennai, India: Department of Indian Medicine and Homeopathy; 1998:33-35.

4. Siddiqui MK, ed. State of Unani Medicine in India. New Delhi: CCRUM; 1996:3-5.

5. Mills S, Kerry B, ed. Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy. Livingstone, NY: Churchill: 2000:22-25.

6. Rao VE. Modern approaches to herbal medicine. Eastern Pharmacist. 2000;45(1):35-38.

7. Dev S. Ancient-modern concordance in Ayurvedic plants: some examples. Environmental Health Perspectives. 1999;107(10):783-787.

8. Narayana DBA, Baba B, Katayar CK. Herbal remedies through GMP/HACCP techniques. Eastern Pharmacist. 1997;41(7):21-25.

9. Anonymous. Quality Control Methods for Medicinal Plant Materials. World Health Organization. Pharma. 1992:492-559.

10. Mukherjee PK, Manoranjan S, Suresh B. Indian herbal medicines. Eastern Pharmacist. 1998;42(8): 21-24.

The Indian government has drawn up regulations for good manufacturing practice for traditional Indian systems of medicine such as ayurveda, sidha, and unani, so that the industry can compete in international markets.

The lack of regulation was “a serious shortcoming which has now been overcome,” said Shailaja Chandra, secretary of the Indian government’s department of Indian systems of medicine. Her department had identified drug standardisation and quality control as the most important changes affecting the future of the Indian systems of medicines.

The new manufacturing regulations are calculated to improve the quality and standards of medicines being manufactured in some 9000 licensed pharmacies. The manufacturing rules prescribe essential infrastructure, staffing, and quality control requirements such as standard manufacturing processes and the use of authentic raw materials free from contamination.

A transition period of two years has been given to existing registered units to comply with the new rules by improving infrastructure and quality. Registered practitioners of the Indian systems of medicine, called vaidyas, hakims, and sidhas, and teaching institutions have been exempted from the regulations.

The Indian government is also planning to install and strengthen laboratories for testing traditional medicines, says Ms Chandra. She believes that this step will promote traditional medicines in national and international markets.

Nationally, state dispensaries will be able to stock certified medicines, and the demand will grow. “Anybody abroad who buys our medicines, whether as food supplements or as medicines, would like to be assured that we as a country have certified the safety of these products,” says Ms Chandra.

If the medicines have been tested in government approved laboratories, anybody who buys medicines could look for the good manufacturing practice certificate and be satisfied that some element of checking at a government level has taken place, she says.

Simpson Industries, Inc. said that it entered into a definitive agreement with an affiliate of Heartland Industrial Partners, LP, which will result in a merger between Simpson Industries and the Heartland affiliate. Under the terms of the agreement, each shareholder of Simpson is expected to receive $13.00 in cash per share at the closing.

The value of the transaction, including the assumption of debt, is estimated to be approximately $350 million. The Simpson Board of Directors has unani-mously approved the agreement.

“This merger clearly maximizes value for our shareholders and creates substantial growth opportunities for our business and employees,” said Roy E. Parrott, Chairman and CEO of Simpson Industries. “Heartland is an ideal partner for Simpson Industries given their resources, vision for the business and understanding of the industry,” added Mr. Parrott.

“Acquiring Simpson is the logical next step for Heartland in pursuing our strategy of assembling a full service provider of engineered metal products for automotive and industrial customers,” explained David A. Stockman, Senior Managing Director of Heartland.

“Simpson is one of the most respected suppliers in the automotive industry,” said Timothy D. Leuliette, another Senior Managing Director of Heartland. “Simpson’s strengths in design, development, machining and assembly of metal parts will be a critical enhancement to the capabilities we plan to bring together in our metal forming platform.”

Heartland had separately announced on August 2, 2000 that it had reached an agreement to lead an equity investor group that will acquire control of MascoTech, Inc. MascoTech is a diversified manufacturing company with world-leading metal forming process capabilities and proprietary product positions serving transportation, industrial and consumer markets.

Heartland Industrial Partners, LP is a private equity firm established to “buy, build and grow” industrial companies in sectors ripe for consolidation and long-term growth. The firm has equity commitments in excess of $1.1 billion and intends to increase its commitments to $2 billion. Heartland was founded by David A. Stockman, a former partner of The Blackstone Group and a Reagan administration cabinet officer; Timothy D. Leuliette, the former President and Chief Operating Officer of Penske Corporation; and Daniel P. Tredwell, a former Managing Director of Chase Securities.

Simpson Industries supplies powertrain and chassis products to original equipment manufacturers in the worldwide automotive and medium and heavy duty diesel engine markets. Simpson’s products are focused in three groups: noise, vibration and harshness, wheel-end and suspension, and modular engine assemblies.

Unani-tibbi denotes Arabic or Islamic medicine, also known as prophetic medicine. It traditionally makes use of a variety of techniques including diet, herbal treatments, manipulative therapies, and surgery. Unani-tibbi is a complete system, encompassing all aspects and all fields of medical care, from nutrition and hygiene to psychiatric treatment.

This is because the early Arab physicians took their basic knowledge from the Greeks. At the time, Greek medical knowledge was the best to be had, particularly from Galen, the renowned second century Greek physician to the gladiators and Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

However, from that point onwards, Islamic medical scholars were responsible for many developments and advancements that, at the time, placed Arabic medicine firmly in the vanguard of medical science. There followed a steady stream of Muslim medical scholars, who not only upheld the high standards that came to be known of unani-tibbi, but carried on adding to and improving the basic pool of knowledge.

* Al Tabbari (838-870)
* Al Razi (Rhazes) (841-926)
* Al Zahrawi (930-1013)
* Avicenna (980-1037)
* Ibn Al Haitham (960-1040)
* Ibn Sina (Avicenna), (980-1037)
* Ibn Al Nafees (1213-1288)
* Ibn Khaldun (1332-1395)

Medical innovations introduced by unani-tibbi physicians included:

* Avicenna was the first to describe meningitis, so accurately and in such detail, that it has scarcely been added to after 1,000 years.
* Avicenna was the first to describe intubation (surgical procedure to facilitate breathing)–Western physicians began to use this method at the end of the eighteenth century.
* The use of plaster of Paris for fractures by the Arabs was standard practice–it was “rediscovered” in the West in 1852.
* Surgery was used by the Arabs to correct cataracts.
* Ibn Al Nafees discovered pulmonary blood circulation.
* A strict system of licensing for medical practitioners was introduced in Baghdad in 931, which included taking the Hippocratic oath, and specific periods of training for doctors.
* There was a system of inspection of drugs and pharmaceuticals–the equivalent of the Federal Drug Administration (FDA)–in Baghdad 1,000 years ago.
* The European system of medicine was based on the Arabic system, and even as recently as the early nineteenth century, students at the Sorbonne had to read the Cannon of Avicenna as a condition to graduating.
* Unani-tibbi hospitals were, from the beginning, free to all without discrimination on the basis of religion, sex, ethnicity, or social status.
* Their hospitals allocated different wards for each classification of disease.
* Hospitals had unlimited water supplies and bathing facilities.
* Before the advent of the printing press, there were extensive handwritten libraries in Baghdad, (80,000 volumes), Cordova, (600,000 volumes), Cairo, (two million volumes), and Tripoli, (three million volumes).
* All Unani-tibbi hospitals kept patient records.
* A hospital was established for lepers. As many as six centuries later in Europe, they were still burning lepers to death by royal decree.
* In 830, nurses were brought from Sudan to work in the Qayrawan hospital in Tunisia.
* A system of fountain-cooled air was devised for the comfort of patients suffering from fever.
* Avicenna described the contamination of the body by “foreign bodies” prior to infection, and Ibn Khatima also described how “minute bodies” enter the body and cause disease–well in advance of Pasteur’s discovery of microbes.
* Al Razi was the first to describe smallpox and measles. He was accurate to such a degree that nothing has been added since.
* Avicenna described tuberculosis as being a communicable disease.
* Avicenna devised the concept of anesthetics. The Arabs developed a “soporific sponge,” (impregnated with aromatics and narcotics and held under the patient’s nose), which preceded modern anesthesia.
* The Arab surgeon, Al Zahrawi was the first to describe hemophilia.
* Al Zahrawi was also the first surgeon in history to use cotton, which is an Arabic word, as surgical dressings for the control of hemorrhage.
* Avicenna accurately described surgical treatment of cancer, saying that the excision must be radical and remove all diseased tissue, including amputation and the removal of veins running in the direction of the tumor. He also recommended cautery of the area if needed. This observation is relevant even today.
* Avicenna, Al Razi, and others formed a medical association for the purpose of holding conferences so that the latest developments and advancements in the field of medicine could be debated and passed on to others.

THOUGH a snip at only 35p for a 200g packet from my local Indian grocer, dried tamarind scores so low on looks that it can sit forlornly on the kitchen shelf for years - or at least since one’s last foray into Indian cooking. However, like many Asian ingredients, there’s really no substitute for this unique and versatile flavouring.

The tamarind tree, Tamarindus indica - its name means Indian date - is a tropical legume, native to West Africa. I’d love to be able to grow one since the tree is described as fern-like and handsome. The plant is valued for its sharp-tasting fruit, which resemble bulbous broad beans that turn reddish-brown when ripe. The fleshy pods are either used fresh or they are dried and compressed into oblong blocks of brown pulp, confusingly also known as paste although it is unsieved. Dried tamarind pulp/paste keeps almost indefinitely - though clearly the older and drier the pulp the longer it takes to reconstitute it.

Reconstituting is done by steeping the dried pulp in very hot water - allow 2oz/60g to 14 pint/150 ml of water - for at least 30 minutes or until thoroughly softened. Press the mixture through a sieve to make about 4fl oz/120ml of smooth tamarind paste about as thick as single cream. This can be stored, covered, in the fridge for 3-4 days. Commer-cially prepared tamarind paste, sometimes labelled tamarind syrup if it contains sugar, is sold in jars here but on the whole Asian cookery writers do not recommend it since the flavour of freshly prepared paste is superior.

Tamarind paste has a deliciously tart, spicy yet slightly caramel flavour, rather like over-ripe plums. An invaluable ingredient in Indian, Thai and Malaysian cooking, it contributes a sharp-tasting note to a dish where in European cooking we would add a squeeze of lemon or lime juice. The paste also thickens and darkens a sauce without curd-ling it and it thus works well in those based on yoghurt or cream. The distinctive tangy fruitiness of tamarind enhan-ces the flavour of mild or sweet-tasting ingredients such as white fish, shellfish, chicken and lamb. A mixture of tamarind paste and salt rubbed into raw fish or meat before cooking gives a piquant flavour faintly reminiscent of Worcestershire sauce - of which it is an ingredient.

And excellent dish of cod with tamarind sauce slightly adapted from a recipe in Jennifer Brennan’s Thai Cooking (Warner Books, pounds 4.99) is made thus: fry 2-3 chopped cloves of garlic in a small pan until just changing colour, stir in 3 tablespoons of prepared tamarind paste (as above) with 1 tablespoon each of soy sauce, nam pla (oriental fish sauce) and dark muscovado sugar with a walnut-sized piece of fresh ginger, finely grated, and 2 chopped spring onions. Simmer for 1-2 minutes then spoon over a 1lb/450g fillet of grilled or baked cod. Grill or bake for 3-4 minutes until heated through then serve with plain rice.

In her exciting new book, Recipes from the Indian Spice Trail (BBC Books, pounds 16.99), Leslie Forbes explains that Indian cooks sometimes use a tamarind- flavoured stock for cooking red-fleshed vegetables such as carrots to complement their natural sweetness. She adds that, “In Gujarat and Bombay tamarind is frequently simmered until syrupy with raw brown sugar and chillies to make a typically sweet and sour dipping sauce, delicious with grilled fish and meat.”

TAMARIND AND GINGER SORBET

Leslie Forbes describes this recipe as, “a romantic flavour of the past turned into a fruity sour-sweet sorbet. It is based on a tamarind sherbet prescribed by Unani doctors (although it would not have had alcohol in the original). To serve as a refreshing drink, leave out the cream, add lots of crushed ice and serve, as recommended by an old Hyderabadi doctor, with fresh flower petals floating in it.”

Serves 6

2-3in./5-7.5cm piece peeled fresh ginger

8oz /225g jaggery or dark muscovado sugar

4oz /100g tamarind paste

8 green cardamom pods, bruised to reveal the seeds

6fl oz/175ml single cream

4 tablespoons rum

Grate the ginger into a saucepan. Add the sugar, tamarind, cardamom and 1 pint/600ml water. Bring to the boil and simmer for 5 minutes then set aside overnight or for at least 3 hours. Strain through a sieve, using a wooden spoon to press through most of the tamarind pulp. Whisk in the cream and rum. Freeze until firm in an ice-cream maker, or in a lidded plastic container when it may be necessary to beat the mixture several times as it freezes to break down ice crystals and produce a smooth sorbet.

Channel offers a collection of value added interest-specific content

Attracts sponsorship from leading national and multinational brands

Rediff.com India Limited (Nasdaq: REDF), one of India’s leading Internet, communications and consumer services companies serving Indians globally, both online and offline has increased its interest-specific content and service offerings, providing users with a comprehensive online healthcare resource.

Additionally, Rediff.com is in the process of launching a series of interest-specific channels. These channels are in keeping with the Company’s India-strategy of providing its users comprehensive offerings across specific interest areas by forging alliances with trusted, world-class organisations.

Users logging onto the ‘health’ section at Rediff.com, will have access to health-related issues which includes databank of doctors; alternative health products available in the market; information on holistic healing - ayurveda, homeopathy, unani medicine and self healing; numerous health tools including a calorie meter and a waist-hip ratio formula; a fitness centre focusing on aerobics, yoga, meditation & dietary supplements; information on heart disease, asthma, diabetes, cancer, AIDS and more. Users can also mail in their queries and get expert advice from doctors online.

Rediff.com has alliances with leading pharmaceutical companies like Apollolife, Lupin Laboratories and Johnson & Johnson to provide various content and services to its users, as part of its commitment to continually offer users ‘interest-specific’ information that enriches the quality of their life.

Rediff.com currently has successful and profitable arrangements with companies focusing on Auctions, Auto, Astrology, Jobs, Tech Education, Technology, Insurance, Lifestyle and Women.

About Rediff.com

Founded in 1996, Rediff.com India Ltd., (Nasdaq: REDF) is one of India’s leading Internet, communications and media companies serving Indians globally, both online and offline. Through its online and offline product and service offerings Rediff.com offers interest specific channels, local language editions, sophisticated search capabilities, online shopping, long distance calling cards and Internet based telephony services. It’s news publication, India Abroad, is one of the oldest and largest South Asian weekly newspaper serving the Indian American community in the United States. The Company also provides users extensive Internet community offerings all tailored to the interests of Indians worldwide. Rediff.com has offices in New York, Chicago, New Delhi and is headquartered in Mumbai, India.

Except for historical information and discussions contained herein, statements included in this release may constitute “forward-looking statements.” These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those that may be projected by these forward looking statements. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to the slowdown in the US and Indian economies and in the sectors in which our clients are based, the slowdown in the internet and IT sectors world-wide, competition, success of our past and future acquisitions, attracting, recruiting and retaining highly skilled employees, technology, legal and regulatory policy, managing risks associated with customer products, the wide spread acceptance of the internet as well as other risks detailed in the reports filed by Rediff.com India Limited with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Rediff.com India Limited and it’s subsidiaries may, from time to time, make additional written and oral forward looking statements, including statements contained in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and our reports to shareholders. Rediff.com India Limited does not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made from time to time by or on behalf of the Company.

The recorded history of Indian medicine can be divided into four phases. The first, or Vedic Phase, dates from approximately 1200 to 800 B.C. Medicinal information from this period consists mainly of curative chants and healing references in the Athar-vaveda and the Rigveda, two religious tomes which reveal a “magico-religious” orientation.

The second classical phase is associated with the appearance of the first Sanskrit medical treatises, the Caraka and the Sushruta Samhitas, which are thought to date from a few centuries before to a few centuries after the beginning of the Christian era.

“This period includes all subsequent medical treatises dating from before the Muslim invasions of India at the beginning of the 11th century, for these works tend to follow the earlier classical compilations closely and provide the basis of traditional Ayurveda,” according to Kenneth Zysk, Ph.D., in his instructive chapter entitled “Traditional Ayurveda,” which appears in the newly released textbook, Fundamentals of Complementary and Alternative Medicine.

The third, or syncretic phase, is marked by clear borrowings from Islamic (Unani), South Indian Siddha, and other nonclassical systems. Historians have said that Bhavaprakasha’s 16th century work, Bhavaprakasha, reveals these influences, which included references to diagnosis by examination of urine and pulse. It is suggested that this phase lasted from the Muslim conquests to the modern era.

The last phase can be identified, Zysk says, by fundamental adaptation of classical Ayurveda to “the world of modern science and technology, including quantum physics, mind-body science, an advanced biomedical science.”

With Ayurveda, the world is in your hands

From its earliest beginnings in the Vedic era, Indian medicine has always held that there is strong, fundamental link between the microcosm (miniature universe) and the macrocosm (big universe).

We human beings, then, are “minute representations of the universe, and contain within us everything that makes up the surrounding world,” remarks Kenneth Zysk, Ph.D. “Comprehending the world is crucial to comprehending the human and conversely, understanding the human is necessary to understanding the world.”

Ayurvedic medicine’s basis in culinary tradition

One way of keeping our individual worlds in balance is to keep in mind that Ayurveda offers a “rich store of natural medicines that have been collected, tested, and recorded in medical treatises from ancient times,” Zysk points out.

The tradition of gathering and preserving information about medicinal-botanical formulations in Nighantus continues today, adds Zysk. In fact, “the most traditional source of Ayurvedic medicine is the kitchen; it [being] likely that, at an early stage of its development, Indian medical and culinary traditions worked hand-in-hand.”

It is this very close relationship between food and medicine that led to Ayurveda classifying foods and medicinal botanicals into Rasa (taste by the tongue, such as: sweet, sour, saline, pungent, bitter, or astringent), Virya (potency, divided into four pairs: hot-cold, unctuous-dry, heavy-light, and dull-sharp), and Vipaka (postdigestive taste, such as sweet, sour, and pungent).

Botanical with a mystical namesake emerged

One botanical which has been gaining recognition at select Western universities (such as Columbia) and hospitals (such as New York City’s Beth Israel Hospital), is Terminalia arjuna.

Traditional uses. While its name is rooted in Indian mythology (e.g., Prince Arjuna of the great Indian epic, Mahabharata) and cosmology (e.g., the Arjun tree’s association with Svati, a star of the zodiac), the physical roots of this woody tree (fam. Combretaceae) are found throughout India, especially near rivers and streams.

In 1869 J.L. Stewart reported, in his work Punjab Plants, that in the Kanga region of Punjab, the bark of the Arjun tree was used to cure sores. There is considerably more to this botanical than this, however. Formulations using T arjuna abound, especially those associated with urinary disorders, gynecological conditions (such as leukorrhea), liver disorders, fractured/broken bones, and dermatological complaints.

Clinical use for cardiac disease. T arjuna’s heart health-promoting abilities can be best illustrated by the fact that, of E2 distinct formulations discussed in the literature between 1938 and 1985, 16 relate to cardiac disease, or Hrig-Roga, the Ayurvedic term for cardiovascular diseases.

An article in Indian Drugs (1987) by S. Dwivedi, et al., found that the botanical increased production of prostaglandin E2 in an animal model. It is thought that this type of prostaglandin plays a crucial role in the prevention of cardiovascular disease by increasing the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the heart muscle.

T. arjuna was also found to decrease the heart rate and relax the heart muscle in experimental conditions, according to an analysis published in 1990 by R.D. Srivastava, et al., which appeared in Indian Drugs. “In view of these results,” the authors conclude, “the extracts under investigation merit further studies in hypertensive and/or ischemic heart disease patients.”

The state Supreme Court has

upheld the conviction and death

sentence of a transient ex-con

vict who killed two people and

wounded two more during a

1990 East Bay shooting spree.

Delaney Geral Marks, now

46, without provocation shot

and critically wounded Mui

Luong, 20, on Oct. 17, 1990 in a

fast food restaurant at 14th and

Jackson streets in downtown

Oakland, then walked down

Jackson Street to a market

where he shot and killed grocer

Peter Baeza, 60, and critically

wounded employee John Myers,

30. About an hour later, he

robbed, shot and killed taxi

driver Daniel McDermott, 47,

who had just driven him from

Oakland to Eagle Avenue in Ala

meda.

||||

Marks was arrested the next

day, and was convicted and sen

tenced to death in 1994. In his

automatic appeal to the state

Supreme Court, Marks claimed

the trial court erred in finding

him mentally competent to

stand trial, thereby depriving

him of due process under both

the federal and state constitu

tions. He also claimed his jury

was biased by seeing a sheriff’s

deputy stationed next to him

during his courtroom testimony,

even though he had attacked his

own attorney in court and

caused other disruptions.

In addition, Marks claimed

the trial court violated his rights

by admitting a videotape de

picting Luong’s daily activities

and photos of the crime scenes

and victims, as well as testi

mony about his two prior con

victions and his parole status at

the time of the murders.

The court issued a unani

mous opinion Thursday re

jecting all his arguments.