Indian claims finding new cube root formula Indian claims finding new cube root formula

It has eluded experts for centuries, but now an Indian, following in the footsteps of Aryabhatt, one of the earliest Indian mathematicians, claims to have worked out a simple formula to find any number's cube root.
Nirbhay Singh Nahar, a retired chemical engineer and an amateur mathematician, claims he has found a formula that will help students and applied engineers to work out the cube roots of any number in a short time.
"Give me any number - even, odd, decimals, a fraction...and I will give you the cube root using a simple calculator to just add and subtract within a minute and a half. We do have methods and patterns, but no formula at the moment. Even the tables give cube roots of 1 to 1,000, not of fractions or of numbers beyond 1,000, for which people have to use scientific calculators," Nahar, who retired as an engineer from Hindustan Salts Ltd at Sambhar (Rajasthan), said.

Is there any sense to this claim? Is it possible to have an algorithm that gives the cube root which uses only additions and subtractions?

Unless there is something lost in translation, the claims in the article are inconsistent...

Even the tables give cube roots of 1 to 1,000, not of fractions or of numbers beyond 1,000, for which people have to use scientific calculators," Nahar, said.
While Newton's formula arrives at an approximation, Nahar claims his formula leads to direct and perfect value, and no approximation.

So, he claims to be able to do this for any number, including fractions, and get the perfect value, not an approximation.... Great, so he is able to calculate all the digits of  $\sqrt[3]{2}$....
Judging by this, I have big doubts.
Of course it matters what he means by a formula; technically a formula of the type $x=10^{\frac{\log_{10} x}{3}}$ is simple enough and easy to use if one uses a logarithmic scale for the real numbers...
