A report claims that a Right to Information query has revealed that the Ayush – Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy – Ministry did not hire any Muslims as trainers for a short-term foreign assignment in keeping with "government policy". The ministry has denied the claims while the newspaper, The Milli Gazette, has stood by its story.
The RTI, filed by investigative journalist Pushp Sharma, is supposed to have revealed that 711 Muslim yoga trainers had applied for a short-term assignment abroad, but none were called for an interview or hired.
Twenty-six Hindu trainers were hired. An exclusive report by The Milli Gazette, a newspaper highlighting minority rights issues, quoted what it cited as the RTI reply as saying, “As per government policy – No Muslim candidate was invited, selected or sent abroad.”
The RTI reply, which is unverified, also supposedly showed that none of the 3,841 Muslim candidates, who had applied for the position of yoga trainer till October 2015, were hired by the ministry. The two questions in the RTI query were: “Please provide the details, how many (total numbers) Muslim candidates had applied for short-term abroad assignment (Trainer/Teacher) during World Yoga Day 2015?” and “How many Muslims applied for the post of Yoga Trainer / Teacher so far?”
However, the ministry denied the report and said its response to the RTI query was fabricated and misinterpreted. In a statement, the ministry condemned the media reports calling the revelation an attempt "to cause chasm between different sections of the society and promoting disharmony and mistrust with ulterior motives". The ministry called the policy, cited in media reports, "non-existent" and "fictitious", and said that it is initiating appropriate action in the matter.
Sripad Naik, Ayush minister, said that the reports were false, and that it was “an attempt to defame” the Bharatiya Janata Party government at the Centre.
The Milli Gazette said the ministry's response was factually incorrect. "The ministry is talking about a different RTI filed by the same journalist at about the same time, and concerns foreign yoga experts invited to attend the Yoga conference last year while our story talks about Yoga teachers sent out from India," said a note from the newspaper's editor, adding that more details would be posted online soon.
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