New Delhi: India has started AYUSH academic chairs in Bangladesh, Australia, Mauritius, Latvia, and Malaysia with an aim to advance academic exchange, research, and public awareness of AYUSH, contributing to its recognition and acceptance in foreign countries.
Minister of State for AYUSH, Prataprao Jadhav informed parliament on Tuesday that this initiative is a part of India’s broader efforts to globally promote AYUSH systems of medicine.
"Establishing AYUSH chairs in foreign universities is a key strategy for fostering international collaboration, research, and promoting AYUSH's benefits. The chair usually aims to advance academic exchange, research, and public awareness of AYUSH, contributing to its recognition and acceptance in the host country," he said in the Rajya Sabha.
Jadhav said the AYUSH chair is the result of bilateral efforts or the willingness of a foreign institution to host it.
"A chair MoU is then signed between the foreign university and an institute under the Ministry of Ayush. Subsequently, an AYUSH expert with the requisite qualification is selected. The chair is then deputed to the foreign university. The Ministry of Ayush provides the salary and travel expenditures, while the host foreign university provides rent-free accommodation and local hospitality to the chair. The chair is deputed initially for 1 year, and extendable up to 3rd year," he said.
The Ministry of Ayush has entered into country-level and institute-level agreements with various foreign countries which embrace the objectives of exchanging experts and information. "In this regard, the ministry deputes experts under the scheme in various trade fairs, conferences, bilateral/multilateral meetings, technical trainings, and similarly other countries send their experts in meetings/events hosted in India," he said.
Replying to a query from Tejveer Singh over the promotion of Ayush, Jadhav said the ministry formulated a central sector scheme for the promotion of international cooperation for AYUSH.
"The objectives of the scheme are to promote and strengthen awareness and interest in AYUSH systems of medicine at the international level to facilitate promotion, development and recognition of Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa and Homoeopathy and foster interaction of stakeholders and market development of AYUSH at the international level," he said.
The ministry signed 24 country-to-country MoUs for cooperation in the field of traditional medicine and homoeopathy.
"The ministry signed 15 MoUs with international institutes for setting up of AYUSH academic chairs and regularly signs institute-level MoUs with foreign institutes to undertake collaborative research," Jadhav said.
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