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On the occasion of the 8th International Day of Yoga, India's Ambassador to Madagascar Abhay Kumar on Tuesday highlighted the role of Yoga in living a healthy life.
The event was attended by a large number of students of the University of Antananarivo, members of local government, diplomats and ITEC and ICCR alumni in Madagascar. "For the past two years, the world is grappling with the COVID-19 pandemic that has increased stress and anxiety among the people. While the world is slowly getting out of the crisis, there is a widespread concern over the pandemic's impact on people's physical and mental health," he said while speaking at the event today. He further said that Yoga, a 5,000-year-old tradition from India, can play a critical role in getting our lives back on track. It combines physical, mental and spiritual pursuits to achieve harmony of the body and mind. The Embassy has taken steps to make Yoga accessible to the people of Madagascar by starting free Yoga classes at its premises. During his speech at the UN General Assembly on September 27, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi first floated the idea of International Yoga Day. The draft resolution passed by India was supported by 177 nations. With universal recognition and growing popularity of Yoga, the United Nations declared June 21 as the International Day of Yoga on December 11, 2014. The first International Yoga Day was celebrated on June 21, 2015. This year the theme for the celebration was "Yoga for humanity". The theme has been selected after much deliberation/consultation and it appropriately portrays, how during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, yoga served the humanity in alleviating the suffering, and in the emerging post-COVID geo-political scenario too, it will bring people together through compassion, kindness, foster a sense of unity and build resilience among people world over. As the sun apparently moves from the east to the west across the world, the Mass Yoga Demonstrations in the participating countries, if seen from any one point on Earth, will seem to be happening one after the other, almost in tandem, thus underlining the concept of 'One Sun, One Earth'. (ANI)
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