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India’s Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi led hundreds of people performing yoga in the Muslim-majority region of Kashmir on Friday.
The exercise held in Srinagar, the capital of the Indian-administered part of the disputed territory, marked the 10th International Yoga Day, Modi’s own brainchild.
Yoga is not itself a religious practice, but has its origins in Hindu philosophy — the god Shiva is said to have been the first yogi — and many residents of Kashmir are indifferent to the discipline.
Thousands of government employees, schoolteachers and students from all over Kashmir were brought in for the event.
He, therefore, urged hundreds of people including many police and armed forces personnel on the shores of Dal Lake to make yoga “a part of their daily lives”.
“Yoga fosters strength, good health and wellness,” he said.
June 21 was declared International Yoga Day a decade ago and Modi has since led events at emblematic locations across India, and last year at the UN headquarters in New York.
AFP
