KUNMING, June 22 (Xinhua) -- Some 300 people gathered for an event marking the third anniversary of the founding of the India-China Yoga College (ICYC) at Yunnan Minzu University in southwest China's Yunnan Province, to celebrate the 4th International Yoga Day.

According to ICYC executive director Fang Zhen, the three-month event comprises a series of activities, including advanced yoga workshops, yoga lectures and a Yunnan province yoga competition.

At the event's opening ceremony, Sailas Thangal, India's Consul General in Guangzhou, awarded licences to practice yoga to five ICYC subsidiaries in Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Xi'an.

The ICYC was jointly founded in June 2015 by Yunnan Minzu University and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, and is the world's first yoga institute set up outside India.

The institution has taken the lead in formal yoga schooling for degrees in China, and is the country's only institution to offer postgraduate programs in yoga.