HI Sriram
I'm interested to know what your thoughts are regarding Deepak Chopra , the public speaker and advocate of alternative medicine
He lives somewhere in California, is a qualified endocrinologist and was a friend of the Beatles. He also does some research on Ayurveda. I don't know much more than that about him.
What you might consider as 'Alternative Medicine' is not 'alternative' for 1.3 billion people in India. It is the main system of medicine for a large section of the population. Most Indians, even the urban educated and rich elite, use Ayurveda for at least some of their ailments.
In fact, the use of Ayurveda which had gone down dramatically during the 1960' to 1990's is now growing exponentially. There are now more young qualified practitioners than every before. The Govt. is also directly working on research, documentation, certification and so on.