Ramdev's 'purely Indian company' Divya Pharmacy ordered to share benefit with locals in Uttarakhand

In a blow to Baba Ramdev, the Uttarakhand High Court has ordered his Divya Pharmacy to share the benefit with locals in the state. The yoga guru and his aide Acharya Balkrishna had argued that Divya Pharmacy is a 'purely Indian company' and hence it can't be ordered to share benefits under the 2002 Act. According to the Indian Express, the key verdict was delivered on December 21st, but has been made public now. With this order, the Uttarakhand Biodiversity Board (UBB) will now be able to levy fees under the provisions of Fair and Equitable Benefit Sharing (FEBS) of the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.

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According to the Indian Express, Divya Pharmacy is a business undertaking of Divya Yog Mandir Trust set up in 1995. The official website of Divya Pharmacy includes setting up 'a new World Health Organisation' as one of its objectives. Raising of funds, accepting donation and gifts to realise these goals. To do business and arrangement of loans from different financial institutions. Loans from Bank and mortgaging the assets to repay the loan has been defined as one of the objectives of the Patanjali Yogpeeth Trust.

Recently, Baba Ramdev had said that it was "very difficult" to predict the country's next Prime Minister in view of the current political situation. Noting that he was "not focussed" on politics, the 53-year-old yoga guru said he would not support or oppose anyone in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. Talking to reporters at the Madurai airport on Tuesday, Ramdev had said, "We can't say who will become the next prime minister (after the 2019 general elections)."

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"We do not have a political or religious agenda. We want to make a spiritual India and the world. Not Hindu India or communal India," he added. His comments had come days after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) suffered a big blow as it lost power in its earlier ruled Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.

The Congress won convincingly in Chhattisgarh, less so in Rajasthan and edged out the saffron party in a cliffhanger in Madhya Pradesh. Referring to the Ayodhya dispute, Ramdev claimed that the BJP would lose trust if the 'Ram Mandir' was not built in Ayodhya now.

(With PTI inputs)