Ministers, govt officials take part in yoga day celebrations

Wearing T-shirts and pants, ministers and government officials in the Narendra Modi government today only had yoga on their minds as they participated in IDY's annual celebrations across the country.
A few days before the event on June 21, a list was prepared dispatching 70 ministers to as many destinations to be part of celebrations of the International Day of Yoga.
Officials of the ministries in Delhi were asked to report at 9 am to take part in the celebrations which are in their third year now. Every government office had made arrangements for the event which lasted for an hour.

In many offices, yoga gurus were called in. At Rail Bhawan, senior officers and staff participated under the guidance of Chakardhar Kushwaha who is a yoga instructor at the Morarji Desai National Institute of Yoga in the national capital.
While Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in Lucknow along with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu flew to Maharashtra where he joined Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis in trying various yoga postures.
Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javdekar performed yoga in Manipur's Imphal along with 1,500 people, including the state ministers.

Culture and Tourism Minister Mahesh Sharma had reached his yoga destination, Coimbatore, a day in advance and tweeted his pictures from Isha Centre where he performed yoga today with Sadhguru, a yoga exponent.

Textiles Minister Smriti Irani who was stationed in Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh for the IYD celebrations even enjoyed the pouring rain there.
"After yoga in the rains, time for some chai pakodas????," she tweeted along with a picture of a glass of tea and pakodas.
Also performing yoga in Himachal Pradesh's Solan, this time was Social Justice and Empowerment minister Thawar Chand Gehlot.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who fractured his leg recently, praised the ITBP jawans for performing yoga at 18,000 ft in Ladakh, while Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi who had a gall bladder operation weeks ago, performed yoga in Delhi along with ministry officials.

Health minister JP Nadda performed yoga in Union Territory Chandigarh and Union minister Jitendra Singh did so in Jammu.
MoS (Independent Charge) for Youth Affairs and Sports, Vijay Goel, participated in the celebrations in the national capital accompanied by presidential nominee of the NDA Ramnath Kovind and BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi.
BJP chief Amit Shah joined yoga guru Ramdev at 6:45 am at Ahmedabad's GMDC grounds on the occasion along with a gathering of nearly 3 lakh yoga enthusiasts.
About one hundred officials in the environment ministry performed asanas in sessions conducted by yoga gurus Jairam Motlani and Jamnaprasad Sahu from Shanti Kunj, Haridwar.

A separate session for women was also conducted in the ministry to mark the celebrations.
In Delhi, nearly 77,700 people gathered at around eight venues across the city, braving pre-dawn showers.
According to AYUSH ministry officials, the maximum gathering was witnessed at the Red Fort lawns in which of 50,000 people participated. 10,000 more enthusiasts came together to celebrate the day at Connaught Place in central Delhi and 9,000 at a DDA park in Rohini.
The streets of Connuaght Place's Inner Circle, where vehicular movement was restricted, wore a festive look as old and young, dressed in colourful attire, twisted and stretched while performing various asanas.

Other public places falling under the ambit of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), where events were held included Nehru Park and Lodhi Garden, registered a footfall of 1,000 each.
The three municipal corporations of Delhi also held events to mark the day. The North Delhi Municipal Corporation hosted a yoga session at the Ajmal Khan Park in Karol Bagh, the south corporation at Talkatora Stadium, the east corporation at its headquarters in Patparganj.
At the President's Estate too, President Pranab Mukherjee inaugurated a mass yoga demonstration.
The International Day of Yoga was also observed at all government institutions - Zonal Railways, Divisions, Production Units, Railway Training Institutes and Centres, and all other railway establishments, the Child Adoption Resource Agency, hospitals like AIMS, RML and Safdurjung among others.

Various universities and higher educational institutions across the country also organised mass yoga performances besides lectures, discourses and talks on the ancient exercise regime by eminent experts.