Highlights
- Federal parliament celebrates seventh International Yoga Day
- Expert delegation proposes Medicare cover for yoga, tax rebate for practitioners, promotion of retreats
- Federal ministers Jason Wood, Michael Sukkar amongst others performed yoga
The delegation of yoga experts, which led the seventh International Yoga Day event at the federal parliament in Canberra, has called for yoga to be covered under Medicare.
The two-hour-long event was attended by federal ministers, Indian High Commission officials, and yoga experts from Melbourne and Canberra, who could be seen in various yoga asanas (poses).
The global theme of the event this year was ‘yoga for physical and mental well-being.'
The expert delegation presented a memorandum to the parliamentarians seeking Medicare coverage for therapeutic yoga, tax rebate for yoga practitioners, the promotion of yoga retreat centres in the country, and its introduction in schools and at workplaces.
The event was jointly organised by Vasudeva Kriya Yoga in collaboration with the Indian High Commission at the Dame Dorothy Tangney Alcove Hall of the Australian Parliament House.
Federal ministers Micahel Sukkar, Jason Wood (in red shawls) with Deputy HC P S Karthigeyan and yoga delegates on International Yoga Day. Source: Supplied by Karthik Arasu
Welcoming the attendees, Deputy Indian high Commissioner P S Karthigeyan said, “India has always believed in sharing its knowledge and wisdom and that is the reason why in 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi appealed to the UN to make it as an International Day of Yoga”.
Highlighting the relevance of yoga especially at the time of the pandemic, Mr Karthigeyan said that while yoga day is now celebrated in 190 countries around the world, more work was required to take this holistic practice of wellbeing to the masses.
One of the parliamentarians in attendance was Assistant Minister for Customs, Community Safety, and Multicultural Affairs Jason Wood.
Participants performing yoga on the seventh International Yoga Day at federal parliament, Canberra Source: Supplied by Karthik Arasu
Performing a few yoga asanas, Mr. Wood said yoga was an incredible spiritual and physical discipline based on an extremely subtle science that is focused on bringing harmony between the body and the mind.
Also present was Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing Michael Sukkar, who congratulated the organisers for the event in the federal parliament and described yoga as "a great example of marrying the physical being with the spiritual being".
He lauded the Indian community for instilling the appreciation of their age-old heritage in the minds of Australia’s future generations.
“It’s really important to know where your roots are, where you come from, and yoga is really one important part,” Mr Sukkar said.
In keeping with this year’s global theme, Rajendra Yenkannamoole, founder of Vasudeva Kriya Yoga said yoga was complementary to the Australian as well as the global health system.
“Yoga’s approach is that prevention is better than cure. Yoga makes us individually healthy, physically healthy and spiritually connected,” Mr Yenkannamoole said, adding that this boosts our productivity.
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