Strike a pose: International Yoga Day stretches around world

NEW DELHI: Downward-facing dogs, cobras and warriors sprouted all over Asia on Thursday, including high in the Himalayas, up in the air and under the sea, for International Yoga Day.

Indian Prime Minister Modi, whose proposal for the global event won UN approval in 2014, led the way, performing his asanas with over 50,000 others in the northern city of Dehradun. The largest yoga gathering was in Mysore in the south with more than 60,000 aficionados strutting their stuff, organisers said. In Tokyo, around 80 people — mainly in their 60s and 70s — took part in a special yoga session in the Zojoji Temple, the two-storey red shrine in the shadow of Tokyo Tower. Some 300 yogis stretched out on colourful mats for a dawn practice in a park in Myanmar’s largest city, Yangon, with the glittering Shwedagon Pagoda as a backdrop. Other events were scheduled around the world later, including in Kilkenny in Ireland, in Milan, Italy and in Times Square in New York. Other cities however held their yoga day earlier than June 21 — the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere — including in Paris, Seoul and in Durban, South Africa last weekend.