INDIA, June 21, 2018 (The HIndu): June 21 is being observed as International Yoga Day every year, after the United Nations accepted India’s proposal in 2014. This year, the national event was held at Dehradun’s Forest Research Institute with the participation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Mr. Modi highlighted the importance of yoga, a gift from India to the world. ”Yoga has the perfect solution to the problems we face, either as individuals or in society. Yoga is beautiful because it is ancient yet modern,” he said.
Events were organized across the country, including Rajpath, where as many as 15,000 people took part in a mass yoga session headed by Union Minister Harsh Vardhan. Rajasthan created a world record bringing over 100,000 people together at a yoga session to mark the International Day of Yoga. Two representatives from Guinness World Records, watched as yoga guru Ramdev put the gathering, which included Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, through a series of asanas. The organisation then handed over a certificate to Ms. Raje and Mr. Ramdev, saying it had been the largest gathering worldwide of people performing yoga.
LOPBURI, THAILAND, June 2, 2018 (Latin American Herald Tribune): Monkeys, said to be descendants of the Hindu God Hanuman, continued to live a life fit for kings on Saturday in the Thai city of Lopburi, where local authorities give them food twice a day by and allow them to roam freely in the streets and around temples. An estimated 3,000 macaques – Macaca fascicularis – live in the city, situated around 93 miles north of Bangkok, although their biggest colonies are found in the Khmer-style Prang Sam Yot temple and the Phra Kan shrine dedicated to Lord Vishnu.
”We have lived together for a long time. I have spent 40 years here, and there have always been monkeys. However, their number has grown in recent years. When I arrived, there were less of them,” Taveesak Srisangnan, a 74-year resident, told EFE. The reason why the primates are tolerated and even cared for is related to a legend which says they are descendents of Hanuman, who helped the prince Rama – an incarnation of Vishnu – kill a giant, Thotsakan, according to the epic poem Ramakien, the Thai version of India’s Hindu epic Ramayana. Lopburi’s name is also inspired by a character in the Ramakien, a reflection of the eclectic religious atmosphere in Thailand, where the majority practices a form of Buddhism mixed with Hindu and animistic beliefs.
Devotion must not be like the flood of the rainy season in which all get washed away. Devotion should be like the river that retains water even in the hottest season.
— Saint Kabir (1440-1518)
