Dinesh Kamath's Editorial 'Hats off to PM Modi for making Yoga international' that was published in Newsband

Hats off to PM Modi for making Yoga international

Prime Minister Narendra Modi says that the way to lead a contented life is yoga. June 21 is being observed as International Yoga Day every year, after the United Nations accepted India's proposal in 2014. This year, the national event was held at Dehradun’s Forest Research Institute with the participation of PM.

Events were organised across the country, including Rajpath, where as many as 15,000 people took part in a mass yoga session headed by Union Minister Harsh Vardhan. Rajasthan created a world record bringing over a lakh of people together at a yoga session to mark the International Day of Yoga. Highly praiseworthy! Yoga has been introduced in a mammoth scale. Genuinely, needs such representation to reach the masses. Undoubtedly, the laudable efforts of PM Modi. Now, yoga is being practiced by everyone - not exclusively done by the elite and the rich!

Yoga is very relaxing and soul-stirring, most importantly wards-off many ailments. In recent times, Baba Ramdev has played a key role in bringing about the Yoga to the masses.

India has practiced Yoga from ancient time. This is a good move to spread the ancient Indian culture to the all of India and then the World where Yoga is already very popular. Best contribution of Modi to the world is spreading Yoga and making it popular among health conscious people. Kudos to him for this achievement. There are so many enthusiasts from every part of the world. Yoga was in vogue even earlier but the credit to make it an international event belongs to our Prime Minister. At a time when we in India are suffering from severe lack of self confidence and pride in our own legacy, for someone to take it as a major issue and enthuse people to adopt it as a daily routine is commendable. As Modi had once said, doing yoga daily is an investment in a scheme for our own health.

It is an understatement to say that this will curtail considerable investment in health schemes. The advantages are immense if the practice is started early in life. This requires instruction at the school level. No one need shy away as it being religious. Patanjali's aphorisms on yoga has no connection with any religion. It is a most systematic and scientific approach to physical, mental and spiritual health in a gradation of 8 stages. This holistic approach as it is meant to be leads to complete human development.

People practicing yoga in countries having a half-decent civic infrastructure will be benefiting more than us, the original inventors.  Yoga does not belong to any religion. It is a way of maintaining health and purifying the mind. We should be grateful that it was in India that this began. Now it is accepted by the world community as a whole. It would have been good if the opposition also joined in encouraging yoga. But now, we should only pray that they at least they will continue this tradition.

Some people find Walking as more beneficial to humans than yoga, which has nasty side effects. A pleasant stroll regularly rather than overkill oneself with the much over-rated yoga is preferred by some.