No patent for yoga means world has gained from it: Prabhu

Cautioning against knowledge being the exclusive preserve of a few, Union Commerce Minister Suresh Prabhu today made the point that yoga benefits the whole world since the practice has not been patented.
He also highlighted India's belief that traditional knowledge must be shared with the entire humanity.
"Just imagine, the greatest inventor of how lifestyle should be managed is a person whose name we don't know, the person who invented yoga, nobody knows who invented yoga, there is no patent available," Prabhu said while addressing the Arogya 2017' conference here.
"He (the inventor) doesn't get any proprietory rights over it, he doesn't get any royalty for every time you practice yoga, this is a knowledge available to the entire humanity and we believe that such knowledge should be imparted all over the world," Prabhu added.

The minister is of the firm view that traditional knowledge should not be preserved and conserved within the four walls of India, but spread across the world so that people at large must benefit from it.
"In fact, when the world was discussing TRIPS, Trade- Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, we were thinking in the country, just imagine, of everything that we discover, everything that we can offer as knowledge. If it has to be patented and therefore it has to have some sort of proprietary rights over it, how will the world benefit?" he asked.

Minister for AYUSH (independent charge) Shripad Yesso Naik elaborated on the government's initiatives to popularise alternative systems of medicine.

"The National AYUSH Mission was started in 2014. An agreement has been signed with the WHO (World Health Organisation) to develop benchmarks for yoga, ayurveda, Unani and Panchkarma. Five AYUSH information cells have been set up in Israel, Tajikistan, Peru, Russia and Tanzania," Naik said.
A white paper titled AYUSH for the World by Frost and Sullivan was unveiled at the conference that offers insights into the regulatory requirements for herbal medicines in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) countries.