A structured academic course in yoga offered by Mangalore University drew Sakshi Sharma all the way from Punjab to Mangaluru.
Ms. Sharma, a graduate in Arts, from Guru Nanak Dev University, Amritsar, joined the two-year M.Sc. course at the Department of Human Consciousness and Yogic Sciences at the university in 2009-10 and passed out in 2010-11.
After teaching yoga and yoga therapy in Bengaluru for three years she is again back in the same department to do her research (Ph.D.)
Ms. Sharma said that she was doing research on the ‘Effect of Yoga Therapy on Lungs Disorder’, since one-and-a-half years.
Advanced yoga
She was among the other students of the department who performed advanced yoga during a demonstration organised to observe International Yoga Day at the university campus on Sunday. Before joining the university here, she did a three-month certificate course in yoga from Punjabi University, Patiala.
Daughter of a Police Sub-Inspector, she said that she was into yoga practice since clasas 7 and had been participating in yoga competitions.
She found that there was scope for taking up yoga as a profession and it drew her to Mangalore University which was offering a structured course with yoga therapy.
Chairman of the department Krishna Sharma said that about 50 per cent of students in the department were from outside Karnataka. They were particularly from north India, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.
He said that 13 students have appeared for the final semester examinations during 2014-15. Of them, six students have already got jobs even before the announcement of results. Of them five were selected during campus recruitment.
