Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday performed yoga with around 40,000 enthusiasts at the Prabhat Tara ground in Ranchi and said everybody should practice the ancient Indian discipline lifelong.
The Jharkhand capital was selected as the venue for the main event for the fifth International Day of Yoga.
Events to mark yoga day are being held across the country and several of them are being led by Union ministers, including Home Minister Amit Shah and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
Modi also said the government has been working to make yoga a pillar of preventive healthcare.
Expressing concern that young people are becoming vulnerable to heart ailments, Modi said, "yoga can play a huge role in tackling the issue and hence, this year's theme is 'Yoga for Heart'."
Modi also appealed to the people to take yoga to all sections of society.
"We should make efforts to take yoga from cities to villages... tribal areas. Yoga is above region, above faith, above everything," Modi told the gathering.
Modi also stressed that for yoga to become popular, infrastructure for it must be strengthened and said the government was working towards it.
Urging people to make yoga a part of daily life, Modi said, "Peace and harmony are related to yoga. People across the world must practice it."
Modi had arrived in Ranchi on Thursday night to participate in the main event on the International Day of Yoga.
Since 2015, the International Day of Yoga is celebrated annually on June 21.
