International Day Of Yoga 2025: When India's Gift To The World Went To Space

Indian and Indian-origin astronauts have always shown their admiration for yoga as a core component of keeping themselves physically fit and mentally strong. The International Day of Yoga will be celebrated on Saturday.

Wing Commander Rakesh Sharma (retired), the first Indian to fly to space over 40 years ago, used a special harness to do 'asanas' (yoga positions) amid the challenges posed by the absence of gravity.

He then compared the results of his yoga routine in space with the training regimen followed by Russian cosmonauts who were on the mission with him.

Group Captain Shubhanshu Shukla, the Indian Air Force (IAF) pilot and astronaut who is set to make history by becoming the second Indian to fly to space, has also been described as a big fan and practitioner of yoga by his mission commander Dr Peggy Whitson.

"He is a fitness-freak and highly into yoga, so I am sure he will balance it," Dr Peggy said in an interaction with the press recently.

Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams incorporated yoga into her fitness on board the International Space Station (ISS) when she was stranded there for nine months.

In April 2024, Wing Commander Sharma told NDTV that the yoga experiment was included in the mission brief of the Soyuz T-11, the sixth expedition to the Soviet Salyut 7 space station which launched on April 3, 1984, because all space-faring countries were looking for methods to avoid space sickness.

"And there were various preparation methods... the one which the West followed and the one which the Soviet Union followed at that time. So here was an attempt to find out if the yogic method of preparing space travellers to withstand the rigours of space would offer a different, viable alternative. Both Ravish sir (Ravish Malhotra, his backup on the mission) and I did yoga about three to four months before the launch," he had told NDTV.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said yoga is India's gift to the world. The International Day of Yoga is a celebration of the journey of a tradition that transcends borders.

According to government data, global participation on the International Day of Yoga increased from 9.59 crore people in 2018 to 24.53 crore people in 2024. Record-breaking events include entering into the Guinness World Record at the UN with 135 nationalities in 2023, and multiple records including 25.93 lakh online pledges in Uttar Pradesh in 2024.

On global campaigns, yoga was performed at iconic sites like Eiffel Tower, Dead Sea, and Mount Everest base camp in 2022. The Ocean Ring of Yoga was achieved in 2023.

The theme for this year's International Day of Yoga is 'Yoga for One Earth, One Health'. Over one lakh locations will host mass yoga events, with the main event scheduled in Visakhapatnam.