A tangled web

Previous blogposts here and here dealt with the dubious activities of Indian homeopaths et al in the UK. Whilst their activities are relatively small scale, they are monitored. Something has come to light that raises real questions about certain persons' willingness to collaborate with unsavoury characters.

Unified Brainz Virtuoso Limited
Harjit Singh Sidhu was mentioned in a previous post. He is the director of this and various other companies - most associated with homeopathy some of which have clearly failed (possibly because they attempted to engage in illegal activities). But it is the other directors who are of more interest as is the company name...

Directors "Dr" Nitu Singh Marwah and "Professor" Gobind Daya Singh Marwaha both have an address of Ub House, G-26 Chandroday Society, Nr. Mb House, Navrangpura, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India, 380014. And there is an Indian company of the same name which they are also directors of. And then things get very strange...

Unified Brainz Virtuoso at first sight seems like a legitimate company but the Indian company would appear basically to offer a "who's who" service - these are scams and research suggests that Indian homeopaths do fall for them. It appears to offer some award - Award dè Excelencia and that brochure rings alarm bells. The chief guest is one "Professor Sir Dr" Lakshman Madurasinghe - President of Medicina Alternativa which is a notorious diploma mill selling all sorts of bogus qualifications in alternative medicine. Quite a few "holders" turn up during research for this blog. This is worthy of a separate blog. 

Photos from some of these events show participants dressed in very cheap fancy dress outfits being presented with unimpressive certificates and very cheap looking gold coloured awards. Likely they have had to pay for the privilege too.

Professor Sir Doctor Gobind Daya Singh Marwaha AKA GD Singh
It is a most peculiar styling - in theory, it is perfectly legitimate - you can have a Professorship, Doctorate and Knighthood but generally the three are never used together - clumsy for one thing. It is fair to say they are most commonly seen together in conjunction with Medicina Alternativa persons.

GD Singh's biography turns up on a number of different websites but this archived version from his (malfunctioning) website makes for interesting reading.

GD Singh says he is -

• Founder and Managing Director of Unified Brainz Virtuoso
• Founder and President of Indian Management Academy (more on which below)
• Actively involved with the Confederation of Indian Healthcare Foundation (CIHF) - it is difficult to determine what is as the website malfunctions.
• Doctor of Philosophy from NWMD International University, South Africa - a theological diploma mill.
• Recipient of Distinguished Award by the IIU, European Union - a diploma mill known under various names such as "Irish International University", "Isles International University" which operates out of either India or Sri Lanka
• Board Advisory Member of IFMS –Institute of Financial & Management Studies (IFMS, USA) - which is not the reputable school in Switzerland, it is part of the notorious Pebble Hills University which again turns up a lot in research
• Chief Advisor - International Journals of Multidisciplinary Research Academy (IJMRA) - a predatory journal
• Reviewer for International Journal of Business and Management (IJBM) - Canadian Center of Science and Education - a predatory journal
• Member Editorial Board - IJSTR, International Journal of Scientific & Technology Research (IJSTR) - Paris, France - a predatory journal
• Certified Manager - Cambridge Association of Managers, England - a diploma mill mainly aimed at Kenyans.
• Certified Doctor of Business Administration - The Oxford Association of Management, Oxford, England - a diploma mill mainly aimed at Kenyans.
• Honorary fellow Member - Institute of Company & Commercial Accounts, Nigeria (ICCA) - which doesn't seem to exist.

GD Singh also has a biography here where he styles himself as HE HRH Prof. Dr. Sir GD Singh. His Excellency? His Royal Highness? Doesn't explicitly say so but. It doesn't really add much to the above except -

Dr. GD Singh is actively handling Confederation of International Accreditation Commission (CIAC, Global) as its founder & president since 2009. CIAC is an International, non-Governmental, private, self-financed educational quality assurance & accrediting body.

Lakshman Madurasinghe turns up again.

It is clear that GD Singh is trying to associate his (notional) NGOs with the UN. This is likely something the UN would be particularly happy about but it is likely his operations are too small to have attracted notice.

Indian Management Academy (IMA)
It has a website with .edu.in address - but there are NO restriction on who can purchase these address. Like some other countries accredited educational establishments use .ac.tld rather than .edu which is for US establishments.

IMA, Since 2005 Acts as Information, Admission & Counselling Center For Various UGC Recognised Indian Universities & Partnering International Universities from across the globe.

But -

The Indian Management Academy – IMA is an academically independent and self-financed autonomous research oriented institute of higher education, offering various masters, doctoral & post-doctoral degree programs through off campus online mode. IMA is serving a global community that not only caters to the self-directed professionals who aim excellence in career but also provides a flexible, high-quality, and seamless instructional management system that gives the students better learning opportunities.

It has no campus, it has no faculty. It does not say anywhere on the website what exact courses might be available. Nor does it which University Grants Commission it acts for, if any. As for partnering International Universities? This page links a number of other websites but only a few of them call themselves universities and none are accredited institutions.

It becomes murkier. That page also links to Iberis Inc/UB Staffing (UB stands for "Unified Brainz") employment agency - the website does not function. It also mentions something called WEVERIFY -

Status: Diploma & Certification Validation PartnerThe mission of the company is to be the right partner for the customer by helping them eliminate & reduce Reputation risk, financial risk & Legal risk arising out of fraudulent employees through robust Screening and Verification process. The company is also into authentic check of Academic Certifications. Our pan India presence ensures that risk mitigation is achieved. 

WEVERIFY provides quality employment background verification services and is the core business of the company. WEVERIFY can package a solution tailored to your company's needs from the following services, designing a program to improve your hiring process and results. This will help mitigate the risk of operational losses which can occur due to bad hiring. 

The below mentioned are a few services WEVERIFY offers – Background Check, Credit rating verification, Due Diligence, Checking of daily routines of employee, Undercover agents, Debugging, Insurance claim verification, Academic / Professional verification, Previous employment verification, Criminal background verification, Banned substances check, Database checks, Litigation support, etc.

Irony rarely reaches these levels.

So what?
It would appear that attempts by Harjit Singh Sidhu et al to set up a "Bakson College of Homoeopathy UK" failed. Instead The London College of Homeopathy, United Kingdom appeared. The status of this "college" is unclear - further investigation is required.

It is unlikely that the UK Unified Brainz Virtuoso Limited will amount to anything. Those involved are obviously incompetent. It may simply exist so that the IMA can claim to have a "London office" but UK based Indian homeopaths have been involved with diploma mills and failed employment scams.