Other States - Rajasthan   

Some yoga lessons for Chief Minister, Cabinet colleagues

By Our Special Correspondent

JAIPUR, NOV. 9. Breathing exercises and "yogic kriyas'' will be injecting new energy into the working of the Bharatiya Janata Party Government in Rajasthan as the State Cabinet, led by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is taking lessons from well-known yoga exponent Swami Ramdev.

Ms. Raje, her Cabinet colleagues and a few senior civil servants, were squatting before Swami Ramdev at the official residence of the Chief Minister on Monday trying to breathe in and breathe out. Rajasthan's new Governor, Pratibha Patil, sworn in barely three hours before, too joined the gathering, as a spectator though.

Ms. Patil, according to Raj Bhavan sources was familiar with yoga camps of Swami Ramdev as a few days back the latter had one major programme at Jalgaon in Maharashtra, her former political constituency. "Yoga has a great significance in our life,'' Ms. Raje said on the occasion. It was Ms. Raje's second round of yoga exercise for the day. Earlier, she attended the concluding programme of the week-long "shivir''(camp) organised by Swami Ramdev at the Patel stadium in Ajmer.

Reporting at the Ajmer camp at 5 a.m., she joined her Cabinet colleagues, Sanwarlal Jat, Vasudev Devnani, Rajendra Singh and the local BJP MP, Rasa Singh Rawat and a crowd of a few thousand men and women in the yogic "kriyas'' and "mudras''. Noting the ease with which Ms. Raje did her yoga, prompted Swami Ramdev to say, "it looks as if you were a yogini in your previous life''.

It seems that the yoga classes are to stay till they learn to do it the right way and the Government here breathes easy. The Chief Minister has offered 1,000 bigha land to Swami Ramdev to establish the "Patanjali yogpeeth'' in the State. The Education Minister, Ghanshyam Tiwari later accompanied Swami Ramdev to Muhana, one of the suggested locations near here.

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Other States

News: Front Page | National | Tamil Nadu | Andhra Pradesh | Karnataka | Kerala | New Delhi | Other States | International | Opinion | Business | Sport | Miscellaneous |
Advts: Classifieds | Employment | Updates: Breaking News |

Stories in this Section

Some yoga lessons for Chief Minister, Cabinet colleagues
Protest marches by farmers
`Administration at your doorstep' campaign
Experts to discuss challenges before NGOs

Copyright © 2004, The Hindu. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu