World's first yoga university outside India to begin classes in August this year

The Vivekananda Yoga University (VAYU), a one of its kind world's first yoga university outside India is going to commence its post-graduation programme this year in the US along with research in the ancient Indian practice. According to university officials, the admission process is likely to begin in April 2020. With a budget of US$ 5 million, the university has established its initial campus in Los Angeles. H R Nagendra, an Indian yoga guru, has been named its Chairman while Sree Sreenath, a Professor from Case Western University, has been named its president. The programme is scheduled to take place from August 2020. Under the guidance of Sree Sreenath as the founding President, the admissions will start taking place from April 2020.

In November 2019, the university got official recognition from the Bureau for Private Postsecondary Education, California to offer yoga-based higher education programmes. This announcement came within three months of the official recognition. VAYU is meant to expedite collective research, credit transfers and combined programmes with numerous leading universities across the globe. The objective of VAYU is to offer man-making and nation-building education by encouraging an all-round personality development in students of generation next. Nagendra, a former scientist from NASA, is said to be the brainchild behind VAYU. He has been working on transforming yoga into a socially significant science for the last four decades. He commenced India’s first Yoga University in the year 2002.