Pics: Dayanand Kukkaje / Spoorthi Ullal / Umesh Marpalli
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangaluru (MD)
Mangaluru, Jun 21: Thousands across the city and Dakshina Kannada district marked the first-ever International Day of Yoga on Sunday June 21 in different centres. The day brought political leaders across party lines together as they peformed yoga at various venues.
Mangaluru
Udupi
People, most of them youngsters, gathered at places like Sanghaniketan, Canara College, TMA Pai Convention Centre and others and performed yoga for various durations. MLC Ivan D'Souza led the yoga for a group of people near clock tower, Hampankatta.
At TMA Pai hall, district incharge minister Ramanath Rai, deputy commissioner A B Ibrahim, MLA J R Lobo, MLA Mohiuddin Bava, MLC Ganesh Karnik, Nagaraj Shetty, mayor Jacintha Alfred, SP Sharanappa, ZP CEO Srividya, former minister Krishna J Palemar and many other leaders across party lines and ranks performed different yoga postures.
A brochure on yoga by Gopalkrishna Delampady was released by taluk panchayat president Asha Thimappa Gowda. DC Ibrahim performed 'Ardhachakrasana' while SP Sharanappa performed 'Ardha Ushstrasana', Palemar performed 'Shawasana' and 'Makarasana' and mayor Jacintha performed 'Pranayama'.
Ramanath Rai, who also performed various postures, said that he practices yoga everyday for two hours. "I reduced from 136 kg to 99 kg through yoga. I have stopped taking medicines and have found that vegetables are the best medicine. I have quit eating non-veg food but I eat fish. As I have to attend various programmes all day, it gets very tiring so I sometimes fall asleep."
The International Yoga Day DK district celebration committee organized yoga at Sanghaniketan, in which former CMD of Karnataka Bank Ananthakrishna and former district BJP president Padmanabha Kottary along with MP Nalin Kumar Kateel and others participated as guests.
Addressing the gathering, MP Nalin Kumar said that yoga is a healthy way to beat stress and other health problems, and added that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has initiated the Yoga Day with an aim to make the nation healthy.
Ananthakrishna urged people to give more importance to nature and practice yoga regularly for a healthy life. Padmanabha Kottary pointed out that yoga helps one to keep not only physically fit but also helps in maintaining mental health.
At Canara College here, NCC cadets performed yoga led by Capt Ganesh Karnik. In his address, Karnik spoke about the benefits of doing yoga regularly and said that he was happy to be part of this great event.
In Udupi, district incharge minister Vinay Kumar Sorake and Udupi-Chikmagaluru MP Shobha Karandlaje set aside party differences and performed yoga together at Ajjarkad indoor stadium.
The record-breaking Yoga Day will have people across the nation and the world perform yoga. In New Delhi, PM Narendra Modi led the Yoga Day at Rajpath, in which Dharmasthala Dharmadhikari Dr Veerendra Heggade was the chief guest.