Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label Yoga

Yoga As Soft Power: Rebranding India’s Global Image – Analysis ( Source- Eurasia Review / Author- Sanghamitra Kalita / South Asia Monitor)

Credits- Art of Living Source- Eurasia Review Author- Sanghamitra Kalita / South Asia Monitor Over the last decade, many scholars and analysts have assessed the emergence of India as a major global player in the context of military capabilities, economic growth and political dynamism. This has often resulted in the overlooking of India’s credentials for developing its soft power existing in the form of culture, values and policies. This new form of power called ‘soft power’ has gained credence in International relations discourse in the post-Cold War era. The term ‘soft power’ which was coined by Harvard University Professor Joseph Nye, is the ability to obtain what one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payments. The smart power, according to Nye, is the combination of hard power and soft power. The concept of power is the mainstay of the traditional approaches to security studies in International Relations. Power is the ability of actor A to influence

International Yoga Day: A New Politics of Knowledge? ( Source- The Diplomat / Author-Rajni Bakshi)

Yoga being performed ( Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Eli Christman) Source- Wikimedia Commons  Author- Rajni Bakshi On June 21, elaborate celebrations in New Delhi  marked the first United Nations International Day of Yoga. What this UN day highlights is part of a process that has been unfolding for well over a century and transcends the boundaries of nation states. In India, this process is commonly perceived to date back to Swami Vivekananda’s address at the Parliament of World Religions at Chicago in 1893. When the young Hindu monk declared that all humans are “children of immortal bliss,” he was sharing a philosophical and spiritual truth that transcends human-made boundaries of race, religious doctrine, and nationhood. In the decade that followed, Vivekananda exerted a substantial influence in intellectual circles on both sides of the Atlantic. This was largely because he powerfully expressed the transcendent dimensions of Indic spiritual and philosophi

Russians take up yoga with a passion ( Source- Russia & India report / Author- Ajay Kamalakaran)

Source- Wikimedia Commons / Author- Yuriv Bugrov Source- Russia & India report Author- Ajay Kamalakaran It came as a surprise to few when Russia decided to co-sponsor the India-initiated United Nations Resolution to mark June 21 as the International Day of Yoga. Russia’s most famous practitioner of the Indian spiritual, physical and mental discipline is Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, under whose presidency in 2004-8, yoga gained immense popularity in the country. The Indian diplomatic missions in Russia are partnering with regional governments, the Yoga Federation of Russia, socio-cultural organisations and Yoga centres to organize events across the country on June 21. The biggest such event is being organized in Moscow’s historic Sokolniki Park, where over 3000 people are expected to gather for a yoga demonstration. Other Russian cities are also celebrating the day with enthusiasm. Vladivostok is expected to have more than a thousand participants in its progra