Yoga fosters holistic approach to life: India tells UN

In a bid to boost its campaign for an International Day of Yoga, India today highlighted at the UN that yoga fosters a holistic approach which could contribute to the improvement in the quality of life and promote greater harmony between people.
Recalling Prime Minister Narendra Modi's proposal for an International Day of Yoga, Counsellor in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Amit Narang said the Indian tradition of yoga is "extremely relevant" for the globalised world.
"The holistic approach to life that yoga fosters could contribute not only to an improvement in quality of life but also greater harmony between people and between man and nature," he said during a discussion on globalisation and interdependence at a meeting of a UN General Assembly committee.

Prime Minister Modi in his address to the UNGA last month spoke of what yoga can do for the environment.
"By changing our lifestyle and creating consciousness, it can help us deal with climate change," Modi had said proposing that June 21 be declared International Yoga Day.
Narang said, "A culture of frugality, of doing more with less, of taking only as much as required from nature and of no wastage, is a part and parcel of the traditional wisdom a child in India receives through generations and millennia in India. Rather than treat nature as a commodity, we need to instill a culture of frugal living, less wastage and equitable sharing of resources."

He stressed that India, as a millennia old civilization and with its multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-cultural and multi-lingual social ethos and a pluralistic, democratic polity, has a lot to contribute to enrich the global discourse of ideas.
"To take just one example, culture and its relationship with sustainable development, which is also a topic for discussion in today's debate, we do believe that the Indian ethos of harmony with nature, of treating nature's bounties as sacred, of seeking a dialogue with nature rather than seeking to dominate it, has special relevance in today's day and age," he said.