By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu, Jan. 15: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has said that yoga is essential to keep one’s mind calm and creative.
Addressing the 6th National Yoga Day event at the Prime Minister's official residence in Baluwatar on Thursday, Prime Minister Oli said that yoga started in Nepal about 15,000 years ago.
He said that yoga gurus had an important role to make Nepal a land of yoga.
“Yoga is a word associated with humans, living beings and nature, therefore, every Nepali needs to practise yoga every day to stay healthy,” he said.
The Prime Minister further said that many Nepalis were healthy because of yoga.
Mentioning that the International Yoga Day is marked on June 21 every year, he said that the day was passed from the 69th General Assembly of the United Nations on the proposal of Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi which was first supported by the then Prime Minister of Nepal, late Sushil Koirala.
“It is a matter of pride for us to mark the International Yoga Day when the sun moves to the southern hemisphere, and the proposal to mark the Yoga Day around the world was made by both Nepal and India,” Prime Minister Oli said. He said that now Nepal should start discussions on marking the meditation day.
Minister for Education, Science and Technology Krishna Gopal Shrestha, coordinator of the main organising committee of the event, said that yoga education and practice should be adopted by all Nepalis. He said that most Nepalis had started practising yoga and this was why many Nepalis were healthier than the people of other countries.
The slogan of the 6th National Yoga Day was “Let’s do yoga in a determined way, in order to remove the threat of novel coronavirus”.
Ministers, heads of the four security agencies, members of the dissolved House of Representatives, vice chairman of the National Planning Commission, senior bureaucrats, yoga teachers, practitioners and educators participated in the event.
Yoga Guru Kshitij Barakoti had taught yoga in the programme. Yoga Guru Ananda Arun said that yoga practice was, of late, increasing all across the world.
He also informed that about 30 million people the world over practise yoga every day.
The government formally started to mark the National Yoga Day from 2016 on Magh 1 of the Nepali calendar.