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A doctor inspects the health of Indian yoga guru Baba Ramdev at Ramdev's ashram in Haridwar, India, on Friday, June 10, 2011. Ramdev has continued his hunger strike for a seventh day despite doctors advising hospitalisation because of loss of weight and dehydration. Ramdev's protest campaign is part of a public push to demand government accountability after a series of corruption scandals such as improper telecoms licensing, illegal land acquisitions and irregularities in staging last year's Commonwealth Games (AP)
Swami Ramdev, an Indian yoga guru holding a hunger strike against corruption, was taken to a hospital on Friday after not eating for nearly a week, his spokesman said.
Ramdev's protest has put pressure on the government, which at first tried to persuade him not to hold the fast and then sent in police to break up his protest in the capital New Delhi.
The guru, whose popularity stems from his daily TV yoga shows, returned to his ashram near the holy city of Haridwar, where doctors had been monitoring his health hour by hour.
"His condition is pretty serious, he is lying down and is unable to speak," Ramdev's spokesman Lalit Mishra told AFP. "He is being taken by ambulance to a hospital in Dehradun."
Mishra said that Ramdev had not eaten since Saturday but began drinking lemonade with honey on Tuesday on doctors' orders.
"If his pulse rate and blood pressure continue to go down, it may put some pressure on his heart," Yogesh Chandra Sharma, the chief medical officer of Haridwar, told reporters. "It is worrisome."
Corruption has become a major focus of public discontent in India, with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government beset by massive graft scandals including a telecoms scam that may have cost the treasury ê39 billion.
When Ramdev's protest in Delhi was crushed by police before dawn on Sunday, more than 70 people were injured, including two seriously.
The yoga guru has since threatened to train an army of 11,000 followers for "self-defence" in case the police attack again.
Another hunger striker, veteran activist Anna Hazare, on Wednesday attracted thousands of people to a one-day demonstration in Delhi to protest against the police crackdown on Ramdev and demand a crackdown on corrupt officials.
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