Millions In India, Thousands Abroad Mark International Yoga Day

NEW DELHI: It was an unprecedented demonstration of India's soft power as tens of thousands across the world, besides millions in India, performed yoga on Sunday to mark the inaugural International Day of Yoga (IDY). A record-breaking nearly 36,000 people, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, took part in the main early morning event at Rajpath in the heart of New Delhi.

Yoga was performed at events across the world -- from New York to Trinidad and Tobago, from the Maldives to Australia, from Tel Aviv to Moscow, from on board Indian naval ships to the heights of Siachen glacier, at schools and in innumerable residential localities -- to mark the IDY on June 21.

The mega event at Rajpath, the ceremonial boulevard and the surrounding green expanse that connects Rashtrapati Bhavan, the presidential palace on Raisina Hill, with the World War I memorial India Gate, was replicated across state capitals, cities, towns and rural areas in the country. Modi described the event as the start of a new era for training the human mind for mind-body balance, peace and harmony.

Modi, who himself performed the asanas among the crowd of yoga practitioners at Rajpath, said yoga was not only an exercise to make the body flexible but a path for inner development.

"It marks a new era of training of human mind for peace and harmony," said Modi, attired in a full-sleeve loose white shirt and white lowers, with a scarf in the saffron, white and green colours of the Indian flag looped around his neck.
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