Yoga is being taught in over 15,000 CBSE affiliated schools in India and across more than 25 countries as efforts are being made to popularise the discipline, the government told Parliament on August 15.
In a written reply in Rajya Sabha, minister of state for AYUSH, Shripad Yesso Naik said, “To train a large number of youth and popularise it in various countries, Yoga is an integral part of CBSE’s physical education and sports activities”.
The response from the government came even as the Supreme Court reportedly told a petitioner yesterday that people “cannot be forced to do Yoga”. The petitioner is seeking a direction from the apex court for the introduction of yoga as a compulsory subject in schools.
Talking about the efforts to promote yoga, Naik added that it “is being taught… under Physical Education Curriculum at senior secondary level among its (CBSE’s) nearly 17,000 affiliated schools spread across India and in nearly 27 countries”.
To promote Yoga among the youth and bring the talent to the fore, the CBSE board has included Yoga as one of the 24 disciplines for competition at the national level.
The outstanding students are to be felicitated with the annual CBSE Chacha Nehru Sports Award, he said.
Following the initiative taken by prime minister Narendra Modi, United Nations General Assembly had unanimously adopted June 21 as the International Day of Yoga (IDY).
Consequently, all efforts were made by the government to celebrate IDY across the world and millions of enthusiastic people participated in events successfully organised in 192 member countries of United Nations on June 21, said Naik.
The Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga and Naturopathy, New Delhi, an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of AYUSH, conducts a number of Yoga education and training programmes to train Yoga enthusiasts, he added.
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