About 1,000 Yoga enthusiasts on Wednesday held a massive event in Nepal’s Pokhara in a bid to promote the traditional Indian fitness routine, as the world marked International Yoga Day.

The event, which featured Nepal’s Tourism Minister Sudan Kirati and Indian Ambassador Naveen Srivastava, also focussed on promoting tourism with an eye on the Indian market.

The chief minister of Nepal’s Gandaki province, Surendra Raj Pandey, too, graced the event at the Pokhara Rangashala ground which drew a sizeable count of Yoga enthusiasts. The event, organized by the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, in association with Nepal Tourism Board (NTB), lasted for over an hour.

“To practice Yoga in the lap of nature, we invite Indian tourists to this city. Tony Hagen has rightly stated that there is possibly no matching beauty like that of Nepal. On International Yoga Day, I wish to invite Indian tourists to the city. We want you all to visit Pokhara and be enthralled by its boundless natural beauty. We are desperate to welcome you all to Nepal,” Kirati, Nepal’s Minister for Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation, said at the event.

Earlier, on Tuesday, the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu organized a similar event to promote Yoga on the premises of Lumbini, the birthplace of Gautam Buddha. Wednesday’s event was the second in a row to be organized by the Embassy to promote Yoga as well as the tourist hotspots in the landlocked Himalayan country.

“The bilateral relationship between India and Nepal has always remained cordial, as the two countries share the same philosophy, culture and civilization. With time, our relationship has only deepened. Through Yoga, our provincial government has decided to promote our religious shrines and pilgrimage sites around Gandaki,” Pandey said at the event.

Yoga, a traditional medication method for psychological as well as physical well-being developed in the Indian sub-continent, got recognition from United Nations General Assembly (UN) on December 11, 2014.

On September 27, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, addressing the UN General Assembly, proposed the idea of marking International Yoga Day every year. The draft resolution passed by India was supported by 177 nations.

Source ANI