NEW DELHI: The United Nations headquarters was on Monday lit up with an image of a yoga position as the world geared up to celebrate the second International Yoga Day, led in India by Prime Minister Narendra Modi who would join 30,000 people to showcase the ancient exercise regime.
The image projected on the United Nations building tweeted by India’s ambassador to the world body, Syed Akbaruddin, shows a woman doing the parvatasana. “Yoga set to light up UN. Sneak peek of Yoga posture projections on iconic UN Headquarters building in New York on IDY 2016,” Akbaruddin tweeted.
Prime Minister Modi will lead the celebrations at the Capitol Complex in Chandigarh, designed by French architect Le Corbusier. The Union Territory administration has decided to felicitate best Yoga performers with cash prizes. The first, second and third prize winners will get Rs 10,000, Rs 8,000 and Rs 5,000 respectively. The administration has also set up a selfie zone at the venue.
More than 5,000 police and paramilitary personnel will keep a hawk-eye vigil to secure the venue. Participants at the International Yoga Day event have been issued special radio frequency tags in order to track their attendance and secure the venue. Around 150 disabled people would be assisted in performing asanas at the Capitol Complex.Over one lakh events have been planned across the country. Of these, 10 regional-level mega events will be hosted in Varanasi, Imphal, Jammu, Shimla, Vadodara, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Vijayawada, Bhubaneshwar and Hoshiarpur. Yoga day programmes are also be organised in 391 universities, 16,000 colleges and 12,000 schools across the country. An official in the Department of Personnel and Training said there would be no holiday and all government offices would remain open on Tuesday. June 21 was declared as International Day of Yoga by the United Nations General Assembly in December 2014.