PM Narendra Modi to inaugurate international yoga conference

NEW DELHI: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate a five-day international conference on Yoga in January that will see participation of 30 nationally and 16 internationally acclaimed doctors and bring out the best of modern medical system of the East and the West.

Union Health Minister JP Nadda said that the 21st International Conference on 'Frontiers in Yoga Research and its Applications' ( INCOFYRA) will be organised from January 3 to 7 and the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has volunteered to do the scientific documentation of the researches shared during the conference.

Giving details of the conference, Nadda said that it aims to bring the global yoga and medical fraternity on a common platform and to establish working group committees comprising universities, health care providers and policy makers to initiate collaborative research programmes.

"Over 10,000 medical practitioners including medical students and professionals, AYUSH and yoga experts and policy makers from across the world will participate in the conference.

"They will discuss the research findings in the field of integrative medicine and give direction to future research on Dialectology, Oncology, Cardiology and Mental Health," the Minister said, adding that it will also focus on translating available research findings of integrative medicine into clinical practice.

Noting that cure of Non-Communicable Diseases (NDCs) pose as a major challenge for the government, Nadda said that the conference will be a significant effort to see how these can be handled with the intervention of yoga.

"The cure of NDCs is not only very expensive, it does not give any certainty of maximum results. There are many areas where research is still going on. NDCs is a life-long disease as it can only be controlled but not cured. The conference will discuss evidence based research to cure such problems," he said.

Listing out statistics, he said that as many as 6.5 crore or 26 per cent of the population suffer from cardiovascular diseases, 6.25 crore from diabetes, 28 lakh from cancer. Five lakh people die of cancer every year while 11-12 lakh new cases are detected. Four per cent of the population is developing mental disorders.

"INCOFYRA is an effort to come out with best of the East and West medical systems. We are not to compete with each other but to find a harmonious way of treating diseases," the Minister said.

AYUSH Minister Shripad Yesso Naik said that INCOFYRA will make an effort to endeavour on a path for a new future in medical care by bringing the total approach to medical science.