International Yoga Day spending: what Factly's RTIs found — citizen guide 2026

International Yoga Day, declared by the United Nations at India's initiative and observed on 21 June each year, is one of independent India's most successful soft-power exports. The first Yoga Day in 2015 saw a world-record gathering on Rajpath, New Delhi. Every year since, Indian embassies and high commissions have hosted events in their countries.

What did these events cost? For years, this was unknown — the MEA did not proactively publish country-wise or mission-wise expenditure. Factly's RTI applications changed that.

Factly, a Hyderabad-based data journalism and fact-checking organisation, filed RTI applications to the Ministry of External Affairs as part of its ongoing programme of government expenditure tracking. Factly's RTI team filed applications seeking Yoga Day expenditure data across multiple years — the specific application years and filings are documented on Factly's website at factly.in.

The RTI applications to the MEA, as reported by Factly, sought:

1. The total expenditure incurred by the Ministry of External Affairs on International Yoga Day events for each year since 2015, including both domestic coordination costs and funds provided to overseas missions.
2. A mission-wise/country-wise breakdown of expenditure on Yoga Day events for the most recent year available.
3. Copies of any circulars or guidelines issued by the MEA to Indian missions specifying the scale, budget, and format of Yoga Day events.
4. The total number of participants at Yoga Day events organised by Indian missions globally, per year.

The MEA responded with expenditure data that Factly reported on in its investigations. Key findings from Factly's published analysis (sourced to the RTI responses):

• Total annual expenditure on International Yoga Day events ran into multiple crores of rupees, with the bulk spent through Indian missions and embassies globally.
• The highest-spending missions included those in large markets for Indian soft power — the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and Gulf countries.
• Year-on-year expenditure data showed an increasing pattern, particularly in the years following the 2014 change in government.
• The MEA's replies in some years included only aggregate figures; country-wise breakdowns were provided in other years or obtained through appeals.

Factly's published reports — available at factly.in — include the actual RTI response documents and their own analysis of the spending pattern. Readers are encouraged to access those reports directly for the precise rupee figures, which are the product of Factly's documented journalism.

Factly investigations: Factly published multi-year analyses of Yoga Day spending, comparing it to other government public diplomacy expenditure. Their methodology — RTI data + official annual reports — was cited by other news outlets.

Mainstream media: Times of India, NDTV, and several regional outlets reported on Factly's findings. The reports raised questions about the appropriate scale of soft-power spending versus returns in terms of international influence.

Parliamentary questions: Factly's data was cited in parliamentary questions by opposition members asking the MEA to explain the expenditure pattern.

Government defence: MEA officials and ministers argued that Yoga Day was a high-return investment in public diplomacy, pointing to the global reach of events and the number of participants. The MEA cited the UN designation of 21 June as International Yoga Day as validation of the programme's international traction.

What this case proves you can do:

1. Government soft-power spending is public money. MEA missions are funded by the Government of India. Their event expenditures — Yoga Day, Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, Brand India events — are public records under §2(f). No commercial confidence or security exemption applies.
2. RTI is a budget accountability tool. If you want to know what the government spends on any programme — whether it is Yoga Day, Swachh Bharat advertising, or COVID vaccine procurement — RTI is the mechanism.
3. Data journalism amplifies RTI. Factly's approach — systematic annual RTI filings, structured analysis, published methodology — is replicable for any government programme. You do not need to be a journalist to do this.

If you want to follow up: File an RTI to the MEA for the most recent year's Yoga Day expenditure. The MEA is at: Central Public Information Officer, Ministry of External Affairs, South Block, New Delhi 110011. Alternatively, file via rtionline.gov.in.

• Factly — Yoga Day expenditure investigations — factly.in (search “Yoga Day RTI”)
• Ministry of External Affairs annual report — mea.gov.in
• NDTV coverage of Yoga Day expenditure — ndtv.com
• Times of India Yoga Day spending reports — timesofindia.com

Indian embassies and high commissions are offices of the Ministry of External Affairs, which is a central public authority. RTI applications about embassy activities should be addressed to the CPIO at MEA headquarters in New Delhi, specifying the mission in question. The online portal rtionline.gov.in routes MEA applications to the correct CPIO.

Under §2(f), “information” includes documents, records, memos, and data held by a public authority. Mission-level expenditure records are held by the MEA. The authority may aggregate data if individual records are voluminous, but a requestor can ask for disaggregated data. If the CPIO provides only totals, ask specifically for a mission-wise breakdown in a follow-up or in your first appeal.

Factly's practice, as documented in their methodology notes, involves filing RTIs with highly specific questions — asking for mission-wise or country-wise data rather than a single total. When the first response is a total, they file first appeals asking for the granular data. This persistence through the appeals process is key.

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