India’s Prime Minister Modi will bend leaders into shape on International Yoga Day

By SHEIKH SAALIQ and KRUTIKA PATHI
Associated Press

NEW DELHI (AP) — When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi leads foreign dignitaries and bureaucrats in a session for International Yoga Day on Wednesday at the United Nations’ Secretariat in New York, millions of Indians will take note. Yoga is an ancient discipline first practiced by Hindu sages. Now, it’s one of India’s most successful cultural exports after Bollywood. And it’s become a piece of India’s diplomacy. Yoga instructor Surinder Goel says yoga should be a daily practice worldwide. Another yoga instructor, Srivalli Cherla, says yoga has become too politicized in recent years. Modi’s ministers, following their leader in practicing yoga, have sometimes marked it with religious connotations by doing sun salutations and chanting Sanskrit verses considered holy in Hinduism.