5th International Yoga Day: Tibetan, Indian Buddhist monks perform yoga at event in Shimla

Tibetan and Indian Buddhist monks performed yoga on the occasion of 5th International Yoga Day on Friday, in the presence of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur and Governor Acharya Dev Vrat.

Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) personnel, differently abled children and Buddhist monks gathered here to perform yoga asanas together.

"Yoga is an intrinsic part of our lives and it releases all the stress and tension, giving us inner peace and strength. We all should perform yoga every morning at least for 20 minutes." Tibetan Buddhist monk Yarphel Lama told .

"I want to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi for taking this initiative and marking this day as International Yoga Day. Yoga adds to the development of our society, yoga shows us different ways in which we can keep ourselves healthy and strong" another Buddhist monk Tenzin Dorjee told .

Health minister Vipin Singh Parmar said that "This is a good beginning that the Buddhist monks have also joined the yoga day practice in Shimla. The provincial government has declared Sanskrit as state's official language, So all the asanas were performed by chanting Yoga mantras during the event."

The theme of this year's Yoga Day is "Climate Action".

It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi who, during his first address at the United Nations General Assembly in 2014, proposed to mark June 21 as the international day of Yoga.

( With inputs from ANI )