We also give Guarantee like ‘Modi Ki Guarantee’ for our Products: PM
Srinagar, June 21 :
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday that the world is looking at yoga as a powerful agent of global good.
Modi was addressing an event while leading the celebration on the occasion of International Day of Yoga at the Sher-i-Kashmir International Conference Centre (SKICC) on the banks of the iconic Dal Lake.
The celebration was disrupted due to incessant rain, and the event was shifted indoors at SKICC. The event was originally slated to be held on the lawns of the venue.
“The theme of this year’s International Yoga Day is ‘Yoga for Self and Society’. The world is looking at yoga as a powerful agent of global good, and it enables us to live in the present without the baggage of the past.”
“Yoga helps us realise that our welfare is related to the welfare of the world around us. When we are peaceful within, we can also make a positive impact on the world,” PM Modi said.
The Prime Minister said the global leaders discussed yoga with him.
“….Yoga’s utility is also being recognised by the people, and there is barely any world leader who has not discussed yoga during my interactions. All world leaders show a keen interest in yoga during their interactions with me,” he said, adding that yoga has become a part of daily life in every corner of the world.
Throwing light on the growing acceptance of yoga around the world, the Prime Minister recalled inaugurating a Yoga Center during his visit to Turkmenistan in 2015 and said yoga has become extremely popular in that country today.
He further informed that State Medical Universities in Turkmenistan have included yoga therapy in their curriculum, Saudi Arabia has made it a part of their education system; and Mongolian Yoga Foundation is running many yoga schools.
Informing about the acceptance of yoga in Europe, the Prime Minister said so far, 1.5 crore German citizens have become yoga
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practitioners. PM also recalled India awarding a Padma Shree this year to a 101-year-old French yoga teacher for her contributions to yoga, even though she had not visited India even once. He added that yoga has become a topic of research today, and multiple research papers have already been published.
Modi said the expansion of yoga has created employment, and tourists across the globe were visiting India to learn authentic yoga.
“People from all over the world are coming to India in pursuit of learning authentic yoga. And as a result of this, sectors related to hospitality, tourism, apparel, etc. are booming from the huge inflow of people. This is creating new avenues for employment for youth,” Modi said.
Stressing the scientific aspects of yoga, the Prime Minister highlighted its importance for coping with information overload and maintaining focus, as, he said, concentration is the greatest power.
“That is why yoga is being incorporated in fields ranging from army to sports. Astronauts are also being trained in yoga and meditation. Yoga is also being used in prisons to spread positive thoughts among the inmates. Yoga is scripting new pathways of positive change in society”, Modi said.
He said the attraction towards Yoga in Jammu and Kashmir has given a new impetus to the tourism sector.
After leading the Yoga event, PM Modi spent over half an hour interacting with the Yoga participants on the lawns of the SKICC. He moved through the lines of the participants and greeted several Yoga practitioners. PM Modi took selfies with student participants.
Addressing the participants, the Prime Minister said that the spectacle of enthusiasm and commitment shown by the people of Jammu and Kashmir towards yoga will be immortalised in the minds.
“The rainy weather conditions leading to a fall in the temperature failed to dampen the spirit of the people, even though the International Yoga Day programme was delayed and had to be fragmented into 2-3 parts,” he said.
Modi arrived in Srinagar on Thursday for his first visit to the union territory after being sworn in as Prime Minister for the third time.
Entrepreneurs from Jammu and Kashmir told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that they also give guarantee like ‘Modi ki guarantee’ for their products, as the youth doing “pioneering work” in StartUps interacted with him during his two-day visit to Jammu and Kashmir which concluded here on Friday.
Modi posted the video of the interaction on his X handle.
“Yesterday in Srinagar, I had the opportunity to meet talented youngsters of Jammu and Kashmir who are doing pioneering work in StartUps. Here are the highlights from the interaction,” Modi said in the post.
The interaction took place at SKICC on Thursday before the prime minister addressed the ‘Empowering Youth, Transforming J&K’ programme. A number of women entrepreneurs were among those who interacted with the PM.
A woman entrepreneur whose StartUp produces feed and feed supplements for livestock told the prime minister that she has 22 products in her portfolio.
The woman entrepreneur told Modi that her year-old StartUp has produced 500 tonnes of feed so far and earned Rs 1 crore.
When the prime minister asked the entrepreneur if she would prioritise her Phd, which she is pursuing, or the StartUp, she answered that she was inspired by him and would focus on both.
Another woman entrepreneur, Sheela Imran Bandh, a microbiologist from Kachkoot village in south Kashmir’s Pulwama, told the PM that the women of her village are very skilled and she uses their skills to create her handicraft products. She told him that 20 women artisans are working with her.
When the prime minister asked her about the marketing of her products, Bandh said she has an e-commerce website.
Modi asked her about microbiology, to which she said there is not much “influence” of microbiology in her village and she had to take the entrepreneurship route to give something back to the society.
Another entrepreneur said he started online by taking inspiration from Modi’s dream of Digital India. Making food products like jams and honey, the owner of the StartUp ‘Just Order’ told Modi that he sources the ingredients locally.
“We also give a guarantee like ‘Modi ki guarantee’ for our products. We offer a money-back guarantee,” the entrepreneur told the prime minister who was all smiles.
A StartUp dealing with lavender products told Modi that 2,500 farmers are associated with him and he was encouraged by the PM’s monthly ‘Mann Ki Baat’ radio programme when he touched about prospects of lavender farming.
Insha Qazi, a business management graduate from London, who has set up ‘Cheese Cottage’ homestay at Tangmarg near the famous ski-resort of Gulmarg in 2021, informed Modi that her endeavour is to have about 90 per cent women workers.
At another stall, a curious prime minister asked the owner of J-K’s first public e-bike sharing StartUp, how many bikes he had and at how many locations had they set up the bikes which are available on rent.
The company has completed 40,000 rides in just one year by having 100 bikes at 12 locations, Modi was told.
To the prime minister’s query that how far does a person ride the bike on an average, he said 13 kms.
Modi’s queries did not end there. He shot one more. “Do foreign tourists take the bike rides or are they local ones only?”
The entrepreneur said both types of tourists take their bikes on rent and the recent tourism boom in the valley has helped them a lot.
“Do you track your bikes digitally as well to see where the rider is going?” was another question from the PM.
In September 2021, during his 81st ‘Mann Ki Baat’ episode, the prime minister had hailed two entrepreneur brothers running a bio-fertiliser manufacturing unit in Pulwama district, and their stall was the last one he visited during the interaction.
Modi asked them whether their mention in ‘Mann Ki Baat’ had helped their business grow, one of the brothers said, “It has grown by leaps and bounds.”
“We have about 4,000 farmers associated with this and they say the unit, which was mentioned by the PM, has become a source of their livelihood,” he said.
Prime Minister was all smiles at the reply.
A visibly happy Modi wished all the StartUps very well.
