Pakistan should rethink its stance on Yoga: Ravi Shankar Prasad

Kolkata: Urging Pakistan to reconsider its stand of not observing International Yoga Day, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Sunday said yoga would have helped in "bringing peace" in that country.

"It is very important to know that more than 190 countries agreed that yoga is important for mankind and out of those 190 countries nearly 44 were Islamic countries. Never ever there has been such massive response on a proposal. You can see that yoga is taking place in New York, China, London also," Prasad, the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology Technology, said here.

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"Pakistan too had said that it will talk about yoga in their country, but it stopped it all of a sudden. I would request them to rethink as we feel that yoga would help them bring in peace there in their country too.

"In Pakistan there was some initial initiative but it was cancelled at the last moment. But what you saw today is that yoga is being done collectively. It is fine embodiment of our creativity, heritage and what India can offer best to the world for brotherhood, for peace. That's what yoga is all about".

"Our government wants good relations with Pakistan. They had not done it (yoga) it is their matter, but it would have been better if they had done it," he told reporters later.

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Rubbishing claims that yoga represented a particular religion and faith, he said it is not a symbol of any particular faith or any particular path.

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"It is a symbol of mankind, peace and brotherhood. It is a symbol of the culture, heritage of our country. Yoga is for moral values and for the well being of the mankind regardless of its community, faith or nationality," he added.

Prasad lauded the response to the proposal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his speech at the UN General Assembly last year to declare June 21 as International Yoga Day. Hundreds of participants, cutting across age groups on Sunday took part in International Yoga Day celebrations in the city.