External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, under fire in the Lalit Modi travel document affair, is in New York to attend a Yoga Day function at the United Nations, which will be graced by Secretary General Ban-ki Moon.
Other Modi government ministers have been tasked with attending functions in different states.
Other than inviting diplomats for the Rajpath event, Indian missions and posts abroad have been in overdrive to ensure the success of the Yoga Day, which is seen as part of the projection of India’s soft power.
Critics have accused the Modi government of turning yoga into a tamasha, with the Congress party describing it as a “brazen and shameless attempts at usurping” the ancient Indian heritage of yoga and turning it into a “propaganda and public relation exercise”.
Congress spokesman Randip Singh Surjewala claimed on Saturday that the Ministry of AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) has reduced the yoga budget from Rs 1,069 crore in 2013-14 to a meagre Rs 318 crore this year.
Interestingly, while some Muslim organisations within the country had raised objections to saying the word “Om”, 47 members of the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) will be part of the global Yoga Day event.
Published - June 21, 2015 02:15 am IST
