New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said he “wanted to take make yoga an integral part of the lives of the poor” as he led around 30,000 people in performing asanas at a massive event in Jharkhand’s capital Ranchi to mark the fifth International Yoga Day celebrations.
“Diseases make a poor person poorer; I want to take yoga from cities to the villages, to the jungles, to the poor and the adivasis (tribals),” PM Modi said, adding “Yoga belongs to everyone and everyone belongs to Yoga.” Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and other top ministers attended events in different parts of the country as part of Yoga Day celebrations. The theme of this Yoga Day is “climate action”.
“Let our motto be – Yoga for peace, harmony and progress,” PM Modi told yoga enthusiasts at the sprawling Prabhat Tara ground in Ranchi, urging people across the world to embrace yoga.
The Prime Minister said the government has been working to make yoga a pillar of preventive healthcare and wellness. Expressing concern that the youth was increasingly becoming vulnerable to heart ailments, the PM said, “Yoga can play a huge role in tackling the issue and hence, this year’s theme is ‘Yoga for Heart’.”
He also stressed on the need to strengthen research on yoga. “Today when the world is accepting yoga, we also have to further research on yoga; we have to unite yoga with fields of medicine, physiotherapy, artificial intelligence,” he said.
Four hundred makeshift toilets, over 200 drinking water kiosks, eight medical teams, 21 ambulances, disaster rescue force personnel and more than 100 CCTV cameras are in place at the venue. Twenty-eight giant screens have been installed for live telecast of the event.
