Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath will lead International Yoga Day celebrations on Wednesday morning with 51,000 participants, including dignitaries, politicians and bureaucrats, in Lucknow.
People in 195 countries will come together to celebrate India’s oldest fitness regimen on the summer solstice, which is the longest day in the year in the Northern Hemisphere. The participants will gather at Lucknow’s Ramabhai Ambedkar Sabha Sthal and begin yoga at 7am.
To mark the importance of yoga — which began in India about 5,000 years ago — Indian missions in the Netherlands, Trinidad and Tobago, and the United States, among other countries, will hold programmes on yoga, with participants from various sections of the society.
The first International Yoga Day celebration was organised at Rajpath in New Delhi in 2015.