( 21 June 2016, Shanghai)

1. The fourth of the nine city celebrations of the 2nd International Day of Yoga (IDY) in the Eastern China Region was jointly organized by Consulate General of India, Shanghai along with Shanghai Municipal People’s Government today.

2. Today’s celebration in Shanghai was spread across three prestigious venues over the course of the entire day. The opening event was celebrated at Shanghai’s most centrally located, beautiful and scenic setting at the Jing’an Park with nearly 500 plus Yoga lovers joining in the celebrations. Given Shanghai’s cosmopolitan culture, a large number of expats including Consuls General of United States, Colombia, Belgium and Cambodia and representatives of Consulates from Austria, Ecuador, Germany, Indonesia, Iran, Pakistan, Israel, New Zealand, Philippines, Sweden, Seychelles and Sri Lanka also participated in the Yoga session.

3. The Jing’an Park event was broadcast live on local Shanghai channels. Since Shanghai is also host to a large number of Indian residents many numbers of the community members also joined in the celebration. Consulate General of India Shanghai had arranged through local resources a Chinese speaking Indian Yoga teacher, who along with ICCR sponsored Yoga teacher jointly led the Yoga session for the nearly 500 plus Yoga practitioners, based on the Common Yoga Protocol sent by the Department of AYUSH. The event was extremely well received by the large number of Yoga following community in Jing’an district.

4. Subsequently in the afternoon, a separate session aimed at about another 500 young students of the Shanghai University of Electric Power (SUEP) was held at the SUEP premises. The SUEP made special arrangements to live broadcast the Yoga performances across its various affiliated centers so that several other students could join it from distance. Leaders of the Yangpu district also joined in the opening ceremony of the SUEP Yoga event.

5. Later in the evening, a unique Photo Exhibition featuring the entire history of the origin of the Yoga, along with all Yoga postures as outlined in the Common Yoga Protocol, were put on display at the prestigious Shanghai Library. The Photo Exhibition is scheduled to be on display till 27 June and given Shanghai Library’s average daily footfall of nearly 8000 visitors, the Yoga Photo Exhibit is likely to be attended by more than 50 thousand Shanghainese. Consulate General of India, Shanghai also used the occasion to donate 133 books on Indian arts and culture to the Shanghai Library which will be put on display as a separate “Indian Section” at the Shanghai Library henceforth.

6. It may be noted that in the Eastern China region of Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu, 2nd IDY celebrations are being organized by CGI Shanghai from 18 – 26 June, one day each across nine cities in ECR, with theme of “Nine cities, Nine Days, Bringing together 9000 Yoga Lovers closer to India”! Each of the venues chosen in the nine cities, i.e. Wenzhou (18th June), Wuxi (19th June), Zhenjiang (20th June), Shanghai (today) Taizhou (22nd June), Yiwu (23rd June), Shaoxing (24th June), Yangzhou (25th June), and Ningbo (26th June), will be at prestigious open/ public spaces with participation from more than 1000 people at each venue.

Shanghai

21 June 2016