Yoga is what UP govt wants IIT, IIM students to study as a new subject

Leading management and technical institutions in Uttar Pradesh will now have yoga classes for students and faculty members.

These institutes are incorporating courses on yoga, spirituality and human values to help future managers maintain equanimity under pressure.

Talking to IANS, a senior faculty member of IIT Kanpur said that while several IIMs and IITs already have yoga as a part of their curriculum, efforts were on to include it in other institutes too.

"The students and faculty members in these premium institutes face extreme stress conditions. The students are anxiety-ridden and this, often, makes them take steps like suicide. Yoga will help all of us to cope with the pressures and also focus on our work," said the faculty member who did not wish to be named.

Sources said that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's yoga guru Dr H.R. Nagendra is being asked to create a yoga package for these institutes.

Nagendra is a mechanical engineer, yoga therapist, academic, writer and the founder Vice Chancellor of Swami Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana, a deemed university located in Bengaluru.

It is noteworthy that IITs in Chennai and Delhi have already included yoga in the curriculum and the results have been highly favourable.

Last year, IIM Ahmedabad introduced lessons from the Bhagavad Gita to help students cope with the corporate world.