A move by the National Council of Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) to introduce a course in medical astrology in the Bachelor of Ayurvedic Medicine and Surgery (BAMS) curriculum has received flak from the Breakthrough Science Society (BSS).
BSS is a voluntary organization with the objective to cultivate scientific and logical faculty of mind. More than 1,000 students have registered for this course. According to a statement by the BSS, “This sort of unscientific belief system incorporated into the curriculum will produce medical practitioners with an irrational bent of mind and will undermine the medical practice itself. While we favor serious scientific research to retrieve any scientific kernel that may be present within Ayurveda, mixing it with the totally unscientific belief system of Astrology will harm Ayurveda itself”.