Study material B.Sc. Life Science II SEC: Medicinal Botany Unit 1 AYUSH The Ministry of AYUSH was formed on 9th November 2014 to ensure the optimal development and propagation of AYUSH systems of health care. Earlier it was known as the Department of Indian System of Medicine and Homeopathy (ISM&H) which was created in March 1995 and renamed as Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) in November 2003, with focused attention for development of Education and Research in Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy. The Ayurvedic and Unani Tibbia College, also popularly known as Tibbia College, is an institution under Government of Delhi, located at Karol Bagh in New Delhi, India. The institution which offers education and training in Ayurvedic and Unani medicine, has its origins dating back to the late 19th century. The college, whose foundation was laid by Lord Hardinge, 1916, the then Viceroy of India and was inaugurated by the Father of Nation, Mahatma Gandhi, on 1921, offers bachelor's (BAMS & BUMS) and masters (MD) degrees in Ayurvedic and Unani streams. http://ayush.gov.in/sites/default/files/tkdl.pdf Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) is a collaborative project between Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Ministry of Science and Technology and Department of Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. TKDL involves documentation of the knowledge available in public domain on traditional knowledge from the existing literature related to Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha in digitized format, in five international languages which are English, French, German, Spanish and Japanese. So far, the TKDL includes about 2.12 lakh medicinal formulations (Ayurveda: 82,900; Unani: 1,15,300; Siddha: 12,950 ), from 148 books available in public domain, and the database exists in 34 million A4 size pages. Creation of TKDL – Yoga is under process and till date about 900 no. of Yoga postures from 14 old yoga books in public domain have been transcribed, which will also be videographed and added to TKDL database. Government of India, on 29th June 2006, has approved to provide the access of TKDL database to International Patent Offices, under Non-disclosure Agreement, between CSIR and respective International Patent Office, according to which – i. ii. Access to TKDL by the examiners of an international patent office would only be utilized for patent search and examination, and International Patent Offices and their examiners would not make any third party disclosure other than what is necessary and essential for the purpose of patent search and examination. Access to TKDL has been given to European Patent Office (having 35 member states), German Patent Office, Indian Patent Office and United States Patent and Trademark Office (the Agreement for which was signed in November 2009, on the sidelines of the State visit of Hon’ble Prime Minister to United States). The genesis of the maiden Indian effort dates back to the year 2000, when an interdisciplinary Task Force of experts was set up by Department of AYUSH and CSIR, to devise a mechanism on protection of India’s Traditional Knowledge, after the wrong patents granted on the wound healing properties of turmeric (US patent No. 5,401,504) by USPTO and on the bio-pesticidal property of Neem (EPO patent No. 436257) by EPO, came to notice which were later fought and got revoked. The reason for this misappropriation at International Patent Offices, as identified, is that the traditional medicinal knowledge exists in local languages, such as Sanskrit, Urdu, Arabic, Persian and Tamil which is neither available nor can be understood by patent examiners even in case of availability, at international patent offices since the information exists in local languages. In other words, there exists a language and format barrier due to which patents are being taken on the existing traditional knowledge of India. To break this language and format barrier Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) was created by India, which with the help of Information Technology tools and a novel classification system i.e., Traditional Knowledge Resource Classification (TKRC), makes the knowledge available to patent examiners in patent application format and in a language that can be understood by them. Ayurveda Life in Ayurveda is conceived as the union of body, senses, min