The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports still lacks clarity whether yoga is a sport or not. The ministry has been constantly arguing that yoga cannot be treated as a sport, as it has various dimensions/ aims in which conducting competitions is not possible. However, 11 colleges affiliated to the University of Delhi have reserved seats for yoga discipline under sports quota. These colleges are also planning to conduct yoga trials and a request was made to the varsity in this regard.
Director of DU Sports Council, Mr. Anil Kalkal revealed that Yoga was treated as a discipline for the admissions under sports quota last year. Last year, 19 colleges had applied to conduct sports trials for Yoga. With respect to the admissions under sports quota, the colleges have complete autonomy to take a decision. The varsity has no role in directing the colleges to pick a specific sport for admissions, he explained.
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Even though colleges have the autonomy to choose sports for trials, the list of sports from which the colleges have authority to choose is compiled by the varsity.
Mr. Anil Kalkal further explained that yoga was one of the sports competitions in the inter-university competition conducted by Association of Indian Universities (AIU). Since AIU recognized yoga as a sport, a few DU colleges considered yoga as one of the disciplines for the admission under sports quota, he indicated.
However, the varsity did not give any clarity whether it would conduct trials for yoga. If the varsity refuses to conduct trials, the colleges will not consider yoga for admissions under sports quota.
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On the other hand, a top official of AIU pointed out that a yoga competition was conducted as a part of physical fitness and the association never recognised it as a sport. The motive of conducting the competition was to improve the standard of performance. The association’s decision is not binding on any university and AIU has no role to play in DU sports quota admissions , he confirmed.
Candidates looking forward to yoga trials will have to wait a few more days to get more clarity. Stay tuned to CollegeDekho for the latest updates on DU Admissions 2018 .