Narendra Modi and Indians stretch, bend to mark International Yoga Day

Prime Minister Narendra Modi practised various yoga poses alongside an estimated 40,000 people at an event on Friday to mark the fifth International Yoga Day in India’s eastern city of Ranchi.

“We have to take the yoga movement to the next level … Diseases make the poor person poorer. We have to take yoga from the cities to the villages, to the jungles, to the poor and the adivasis (tribal people),” Modi told the gathering, adding, “Yoga belongs to everyone and everyone belongs to yoga.”

The theme of this yoga day is “climate action” and Modi said yoga can “foster oneness … with all the flora and fauna with whom we share our beautiful planet”.

The UN declared June 21 as the International Day of Yoga after Modi, a yoga enthusiast, lobbied for the ancient art. The prime minister’s promotion of yoga is part of the country’s push to tap Indian traditions as a source of national pride and global influence.

Originated almost 5,000 years ago, the discipline involving spiritual and physical practices is now a global phenomenon followed by about 300 million people worldwide. Yoga first appeared in the sacred Hindu epic the Bhagavad Gita written between the fifth and second centuries BC and gained popularity in the West by the end of the 19th century.

Swami Vivekananda, a Hindu monk, laid the foundations for a modern and international yoga, which is now becoming massively popular with the emergence of unusual forms such as doga (yoga with a dog), hoga (yoga on a horse), laughter yoga and beer yoga.

The foreign ministry said most of India’s 191 embassies and consulates worldwide organised yoga sessions to commemorate the day, from the Washington Monument to China’s Yellow Crane Tower.

Here are snapshots of yoga day celebrations from around the world: