Source: World Watch Monitor, June 29, 2015<\/p>\n
As you may have seen, June 21 was the first-ever International Yoga Day, observed from New Delhi to New York. In yoga\u2019s birthplace, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself led a yoga session attended by 37,000 people in the heart of Indian capital. June 21 also was a Sunday, and that\u2019s why several of India\u2019s Christian organizations voiced their opposition\u2014not to yoga itself, but to another big national event scheduled on a Christian holy day.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that we do not welcome yoga, minus its (Hindu) religious connotation, since it has merits for mind exercise and relieving stress. However, the hype and overboard is just too much,\u201d said [a senior Presbyterian church leader in the north-east of India and former leader in the National Council of Churches in India].<\/p>\n
Yoga Day is the latest of several attempts by India\u2019s government to hold high-profile events on Christian holy days. The government declared a nationwide observance of \u201cGood Governance Day\u201d on Christmas. It convened a national conference of judges on Good Friday. India\u2019s education minister has said yoga would become part of the federal school curriculum, and a top official of one of India\u2019s 29 states told a Catholic convention that Christians should start reciting Hindu mantras as part of their worship services.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: World Watch Monitor, June 29, 2015 As you may have seen, June 21 was the first-ever International Yoga Day, observed from New Delhi to New York. In yoga\u2019s birthplace, India Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself led a yoga session attended by 37,000 people in the heart of Indian capital. June 21 also was a … Continue reading INDIA: Holiday Wars<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5712,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5711\/revisions\/5712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}