Mumbai hopes rain won’t wash out Yoga Day celebrations

Organisers remain optimistic, but forecasters see little respite.

With the monsoon well underway and rain forecast for Sunday, Mumbai has its fingers crossed for the first International Yoga Day celebration.

Around 50,000 people were expected to attend yoga sessions between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. in what has been touted as the biggest open-air event ever at the famous Marine Drive promenade from Nariman Point to Girgaum Chaupatty, according to the organisers.

“We have not given up hope. We continue to plan for the programme, where 150 trainers provided by fitness trainer Mickey Mehta will conduct sessions. Many NGOs and organisations are participating in this session organised by my father Nana Chudasama’s NGO,” said Shaina NC, a BJP leader.

Many organisers who had planned open air programmes have now said their schedules are subject to weather conditions. Many schools and colleges have downsized celebrations and have either moved their pro- grammes indoors or postponed them.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will mark the day at Yashwant Stadium in Nagpur.

To facilitate people’s movement for celebrating Yoga Day, Central Railways has called off the megablock that is generally undertaken every Sunday. “Apart from arranging Yoga classes for our staff, we have also called off the Megablock. Yoga classes will be held at the offices of the deputy regional managers,” said A.K. Jain, public relations officer of Central Railways.

The weatherman has warned that rain might play spoilsport. “Unfortunately, we can’t predict the exact timings. We can say that there will definitely be rainfall tomorrow. We don’t know how much respite there will be, or when. But there might be a slight respite from heavy rainfall,” said V.K. Rajeev, a scientist at the Indian Meteorological Department, Mumbai.

Mumbai is likely to get heavy rainfall on Saturday night as well, he said, adding, “A heavy rain spell like Friday’s is not expected for the next few days.”

Those who had anticipated rain and had panned indoor events too fear low turnout. “In a city like Mumbai, the rain decides everything. So if there is heavy rainfall tomorrow, people may not leave their homes,” one organiser said.

Not all are pessimistic, however. Kaivalyadham, which had planned indoor events, expects participants to turn up in large numbers. “Most of the activities have been organised at a venue close to the participants. We will conduct indoor Yoga programmes at 20 locations in the city. Two of them are open to the general public,” said Kaivalyadham’s Subodh Tiwari.

The organisation has been involved in training government organisations such as Indian Post, Mantralaya staff and the Indian Navy, as well as jail staff and inmates.

Their events at Kalina University campus and Marine Drive Kaivalyadham will be open to the public for free. Participants can walk in for a session between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m.

Classes will be held at government offices, including the State Secretariat where Union minister Piyush Goyal is likely to participate.

The Indian Navy said that NCC venues were being shifted to covered sheds, gymnasiums, hangars and parking lots due to the fear of rainfall. “NCC Directorate Maharashtra is likely to field nearly 76,000 cadets of this directorate in performing yoga ... at 244 venues spread over the entire state, between 7 am to 7.35 am. Nationwide, NCC strives to endorse this achievement in the Limca Book of Records for ‘Largest Yoga Performance simultaneously by a uniformed youth organisation’,” the press statement said.

It further stated, “For forces under the Western Naval Command, yoga workshops and workouts are being conducted by certified Patanjali Yog Samiti instructors at South Mumbai at six places, which includes Naval Dockyard. A total of over 10,000 personnel are expected to take part in yoga camps being organised at various places under the Western Naval Command.” Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has ordered a Vigilance Department probe into Health Minister Anil Vij’s allegations of serious irregularities to the tune of Rs 5,000 cr in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).

Vij had made scathing observations during a raid at the NRHM headquarters in Panchkula last month, prompting the probe. “Whichever file I saw, I found a snake sitting on it,” Vij remarked after the raid. Vij said the NRHM had been procuring medicines worth crores of rupees without commissioning any research for these from independent agencies. “They made all these purchases depending on test reports submitted by the manufacturers and suppliers,” he said, “Would any company ever admit its medicines are not up to the mark?”

The minister pointed out that the annual budget of the NRHM was around Rs 500 cr per annum, which meant they had spent Rs 5,000 crore over the past decade. He said that this did not match the state’s health outcomes.

The Health Minister claimed that a company that supplied dentists’ chairs during this period had been blacklisted in other states. Similarly, he said, a blacklisted firm had been supplying medicines. An order had been placed with the same firm for bandages, which turned out to be defective. It refused to replace the bandages. The minister also said that the NHRM was overstaffed.

A Haryana official said that the Chief Minister had directed the Vigilance Department to enquire into all the points raised by the Health Minister.

Health Department officials have been dismissive of the Health Minister’s claims. They say that the department has not been getting this kind of funding, and that talk of a Rs 5,000 cr scam is pure imagination.