About - Indica Yoga

Yogacharya Alliance is a global network of teachers who share our diverse and inclusive approach to Yoga that is authentic, immersive and transformative.

We seek collaborations to organise workshops and retreats around the world.

To join our alliance write to us at namaste@indicayoga.com

Our Team & Advisors

Hari Kiran
Vinayachandra Banavathy
Jayaraman Mahadevan
Datta Prasad
Sophia Ann French
Bheemashankar .N
Anuradha Choudry
Omkar

Hari Kiran

Founder

Hari Kiran Vadlamani ( Hari) is a Chartered Accountant by qualification and a serial entrepreneur, having been involved in four ventures in Technology and Energy sectors.

He is deeply passionate about Art, Philosophy and Indian Cultural Heritage and is a Dharmic- Indic Liberal.

In 2015 he transformed himself into a Social Entrepreneur pursuing the preservation, protection and promotion of Indian Heritage. He founded INDICA ( www.indica.in) and NICE (www.niceorg.in) , both not for profits in the area of Cultural Education and Entrepreneurship.

Hari brings in an entrepreneurial mindset to his work of delivering indigenous knowledge as a service, product or an experience by incubating a portfolio of ideas, rapid prototyping, absorbing failures, applying a three horizon framework, thinking of scale etc.

Having the mindset of a venture investor, Hari is focussed on backing passionate individuals. He encourages, enables and empowers them to discover, nurture and express their creative potential. He believes in transforming the narrator and not the narrative.

A strong advocate of pluralism, Hari envisions a vibrant ecosystem of diverse set of players and ideas and seeks to build the enabling infrastructure.

Hari believes that Indian thought and the indigenous way of life from various global traditions have solutions to some of the key challenges we face today, especially sustainability, happiness, well-being and peace. He is working on developing the requisite institutional mechanisms that can transform a billion global consumers into conscious thinkers, entrepreneurs, leaders and most importantly seekers.

He has developed a unique six dimensional integral strategy for pursuing this vision.

Vinayachandra Banavathy

Director

Dr. Vinayachandra Banavathy is the Director of Indica Yoga, an Indic Academy platform that offers authentic, immersive and transformative yoga experiences across the world. He holds a PhD on psychological insights in the Vedas from Pondicherry University, besides Master’s in Sanskrit, English, Yogic Science and Applied Psychology. He is a dedicated teacher who travels across the world conducting courses, lectures and workshops on a unique blend of Yoga, Psychology and Sanskrit. His publications include a report on Standardization of Yoga Terminologies for WHO; a book co-edited with Dr. Anuradha Choudry titled ‘Perspectives on Indian Psychology’, published by Jain University Press, another book co-authored titled ‘Happiness: Indic Perspectives’, published by Development Foundation, besides a few articles, papers, booklets on Yoga, Indian Psychology, Culture and Spirituality.

Jayaraman Mahadevan

Director

Dr Jayaraman Mahadevan is the Director -Textual Research for Yoga at Indica. Sri Jayaraman holds a PhD in – Sanskrit from the University of Madras (2006-2010). He creditably completed his under graduation (Education, Philosophy, English Literature) and post-graduation (Sanskrit) with gold medal and first rank in both the degrees. He underwent traditional Gurukula education, in Vedas and Shastras (1998-2005), in Veda Vijnana Gurukulam, Bengaluru, under Pracarya Kotemane Ramachandra Bhat. He served the research department of Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Chennai, in the capacity of Assistant Director (2010-2015) initially and later as Director (2015-2021). Thus far, he has published 14 books and 14 peer reviewed Journal articles and numerous popular articles on Yoga and Sanskrit literature in English, Tamil and Sanskrit languages. He is also involved in developing immersive learning methods of Yoga texts. ‘Yogasya Bhasha’ a four part self-learning material on Sanskrit and Yoga, ‘Yoga-vaisharadi’ – a searchable web-repository on classical texts of Yoga are a few of his noteworthy contributions in recent times. His workshops on “Tantrayukti – Ancient Indian thesis/text construction methodology” are well received. His passion also lies in composing Sanskrit poetry on contemporary themes.

Datta Prasad

Coordinator

Datta Prasad is a certified Yoga Therapist from the prestigious SVYASA Yoga University, Bangalore with more than a decade of rich and varied experience of working in the field of Yoga with many renowned & reputed organizations.

Yoga for him is a Spiritual journey, a lifelong passion & an ever-inspiring vocation. He strongly believes – yoga is a life-transformative art & science with huge capabilities to radically transform individual lives as well as organizations to reach their fullest potential.

Sophia Ann French

Coordinator

Sophia has been a journalist for over 15 years, and she has been practising hatha yoga for 20 years. She completed a yoga and Vedanta course at the Sivananda Yoga and Vedanta Ashram in Netala, and she's been practising hatha yoga in the Iyengar and Krishnamacharya systems. She is currently studying Indian philosophy and is a regular journalist