In a historic celebration to commemorate the ninth International Day of Yoga, Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived at the headquarters of United Nations in New York and led a special yoga session which witnessed the presence of top UN officials, ambassadors, envoys, delegates from Member States as well as prominent members of the global and diaspora community.
He began the programme by paying respects to the bust of Mahatma Gandhi at the North Lawn of the UN headquarters. The bust was installed in December last year under India's presidency of the UN Security Council. Addressing the huge crowd, Modi said that yoga was a way of building bridges. It is free of copyrights and patents and is adaptable and universal.
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Notably, the event created a new Guiness World Record for the most number of nationalities participating in a yoga session. Michael Empric, Guinness World Records official adjudicator said, "Today there was a Guinness World Records title attempt for most nationalities in a Yoga lesson. The mark to be was 140 nationalities. Today in New York, at the UN, they have 135. It is a new Guinness world records title..."
Ahead of the special event, Indian expatriates filled the UN Headquarters lawns with chants of 'Bharat mata ki jai' and 'Vande Mataram'.
'Yoga Free From Copyright'
PM Modi began his speech by thanking people for showing up in such large numbers to attend the event. Expressing delight after being told that almost every nationality is represented here today, he said, "Yoga means to unite, so you are coming together is an expression of another form of Yoga."
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"...Let us use the power of Yoga not only to be healthy, happy but also to be kind to ourselves and to each other. Let us use the power of Yoga to build bridges of friendship, a peaceful world and a cleaner, greener and sustainable future. Let us join hands together to realise the goal of One Earth, One Family, One Future," he said.
Talking about the origins of yoga, Modi said that the old tradition comes from India. "Yoga comes from India and it is a very old tradition. Yoga is free from copyrights, patents and free from royalty payments. Yoga is adaptable to your age, gender and fitness level. Yoga is portable and is truly universal," he said.
The PM then participated in the unique yoga session with other prominent personalities.
Star-studded guest list
Among the prominent members who arrived at the venue was Grammy Winner Falguni Shah. "I am here to do Yoga with PM Modi and others who believe in yoga, wellness and beautiful health," she said. PM Modi had also met the award-winnger singer earlier and lauded her for her song ‘Abundance in Millets’ that raises awareness regarding healthy and environment friendly millets.
Hollywood actor Richard Gere too arrived at the UN headquarters. "The feeling here is so open and embracing, I hope this feeling intoxicates the entire building. It's really nice feeling here today," he said. The actor is also an advocate for human rights in Tibet and a co-founder of the Tibet House, US, and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the International Campaign for Tibet.
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President Csaba Korosi of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in a tweet on Thursday expressed his enthusiasm for participating in the event.
The Mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, too arrived at the venue to participate in the event. "It is so important for us to move from just practitioners to executors. We practice Yoga but we execute what we get from Yoga in our lives. That is the message, I believe, the PM is bringing..," he said.
Also performing breathing exercises at the event were Vala Afshar, Chief Digital Evangelist at Salesforce; Jay Shetty, award-winning storyteller, podcaster, and former monk; Vikas Khanna, Indian chef and restaurateur; Mike Hayes, Chief Operating Officer of VM Ware, a cloud computing major; and Britt Kelly Slabinski, a highly decorated US Navy SEAL officer who has served in Afghanistan and Iraq and is a currently a consultant at LeadWright Enterprise.
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Modi began his first leg of his maiden state visit to the US at the invitation of President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden.
