Yoga is a gift to the World from India: Vice President
The Vice President of India, M Venkaiah Naidu has advised the youth to shun sedentary lifestyle, junk food and stay healthy and also called up on people to make yoga an integral part of their daily routine to combat lifestyle diseases which have acquired menacing proportions. He was addressing the gathering after releasing the book ‘Yoga and Mindfulness’ authored by well known Yoga exponent, Mansi Gulati.
The Vice President stressed that yoga would help in combating severe stress, life style diseases and helps the overall wellbeing of an individual. “Practicing yoga will aid in strengthening muscles, improving respiration, lung functions, metabolism and circulation, he said. It would also help in improving immune system and mind relaxation,” he added.
The Vice President called on people to practice yoga to be free of Roga (Illnesses) as he expressed concern over the worrisome statistics and this unhealthy trend of trend of increasing cancer cases and lifestyle diseases such as obesity. “Every individual has to become health conscious and avoid leading sedentary lifestyle, eating junk food and harmful use of alcohol and tobacco,” he said.
Saying that yoga was a gift to the World from India, the Vice President said that everyone must be proud of the fact that UN had declared June 21 as International Yoga Day following the efforts of Prime Minister, Narendra Modi.
Underlining that yoga has nothing to do with religion, the Vice President expressed concern that some people with bigoted mindset and a tunnel vision were attempting to give it a religious colour. “The fact that people in several countries across the continents have embraced yoga shows the hollowness of the claims that link yoga to religion,” he added.
Ambassadors and High Commissioners of several countries, Members of Parliament, Yoga experts and other dignitaries were present on the occasion.