Centre ‘patents’ 1500 yoga asanas

New Delhi: The Narendra Modi government has shortlisted over 1,500 asanas and videographed over 250, classifying them as “traditional knowledge” of the country. This has been done in an effort to thwart attempts by foreign MNCs and individuals to get patents and trademark on ancient yoga techniques.

“Our experts identified over 1,500 yoga techniques from the literature available in our ancient texts. Nearly 250 asanas were videographed. After five or six months, it can be the part of the database,” said Archana Sharma, head of Traditional Knowledge Digital Library.

Many claimed neem patent
The initiative to patent yoga will be a part of the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library, a unit of Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) of the ministry of science and technology, which challenges claims made at several patent offices across the globe by individuals and MNCs.

“Once that happens, any attempt to claim patent on the Indian yoga techniques practised since ancient time can be thwarted,” said Archana Sharma, head of TKDL.
The government decided to form the TKDL after the bitter experience of some MNCs claiming patents for neem and turmeric in the last two decades.

Now TKDL has over 2.93 lakh medicines, their properties indicating that those have been traditionally used for cure in Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha systems. The information is also present in Spanish, German, English, Japanese and French. In the past one month, India has thwarted two attempts at patenting Indian medicines, which again included turmeric.