New Delhi: Sports like gilli danda', 'kabbadi', 'posham pa', and 'kanche' including 75 Bharatiya Games.
These games were introduced by Home Minister Amit Shah as a series of initiatives in the education and skills development sector to mark the implementation of of the National Education Policy.
Reportedly, several games from different states have been listed to be incorporated in schools.
One of these sports was a 'gilli danda' which is exclusively played by Odisha's Santhal tribe to which India's President Droupadi Murmu belongs.
"The idea is not just to simply promote Indian games in schools. The actual idea is to make sports more inclusive at the school level. For instance, the schools in rural areas don't have infrastructure for popular school games like basketball or badminton. Why should we restrict their participation?" HT quoted Ganti S Murthy, national coordinator for IKS as saying.
Further he also explained that the purpose is to introduce local games which are less resource intensive and encourage.
Notably, 'gilli danda' is more than 5,000 years old and it was also mentioned in a verse in Mahabharata which says that Krishna, Arjun and Bhima are playing 'gilli danda'
With inputs from Hindustan Times (HT)