PM Modi said that Yoga has weaved the World into a global village. Dressed in a white T-shirt and loose white trousers, Prime Minister Narendra Modi shared the stage in Lucknow with Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, who too performed yoga in the light drizzle.
“I welcome all yoga lovers present here and those performing yoga in various corners of the world. Today, yoga has become a part of so many lives. Yoga’s popularity out of India is high and it has connected the world with India,” PM Modi said.
The Prime Minister — who participated in celebrations in Delhi in 2015 and Chandigarh in 2016 — has appealed to three generations of families to perform Yoga together, take a picture and upload it online.
It rained in Delhi too this morning, as thousands gathered clutching umbrellas or wrapped in raincoats to do yoga. In Lucknow, people were seen using yoga mats as umbrellas and raincoats as yoga mats.
Union ministers Venkaiah Naidu and Vijay Goel, Delhi Lieutenant Governor Anil Baijal, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and the BJP’s presidential nominee, Ram Nath Kovind, joined the celebrations in Delhi’s Connaught Place.
Other senior union ministers led yoga sessions in different parts of the country.In Ladakh, jawans of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police performed a yoga session at 18,000 feet and a temperature of minus 25 degrees Celsius.
Officers of the Indian Navy held yoga events on board the aircraft carrier INS Vikramaditya and at the naval dockyard in Mumbai.
Over 200 million people were estimated to have participated in the event last year, a figure the government hopes to beat this year.
International Yoga Day is being celebrated in nearly 180 nations. Some of them, including China and UK, have scheduled events through the week. The United Nations headquarters in New York has been lit up with images of yoga postures.
