Twitter, Snapchat celebrate International day of Yoga with emojis
June 21, 2020 marked the sixth International day of Yoga. A popular form of fitness and exercise, Yoga has been advocated by India's leaders and health enthusiasts across the world for its therapeutic properties, especially amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a keen yoga practitioner himself, advocated in his International Yoga Day address that Yoga enhances our quest for a healthier planet and that it has also emerged as a force of unity that deepens the bonds of humanity. He added that it is an activity that does not discriminate between human beings and goes beyond race, gender, colour, caste, and faith.
While the popularity of Yoga across the world is uncontested, Twitterverse was abuzz with hashtags, videos and pictures of people practising their favourite asanas.
To add to this, Twitter introduced new emojis for the special event both for English and Hindi hashtags.
Twitter’s custom emoji for International Yoga Day 2020 will pop up with certain hashtags. These hashtags include #InternationalYogaDay2020, #InternationalYogaDay, #YogaDay2020, #YogaDay, #MyLifeMyYoga, #योगदिवस and #अंतर्राष्ट्रीययोगदिवस.
Snapchat has also introduced a new kind of Bitmoji as a recognition of International Yoga Day that basically teaches yoga poses. Snapchat users can now learn different yoga poses from their Bitmojis. Some of the asanas include Vrikshasana, Samasthithi and Sukhasana. Users can also share their Yoga Bitmojis.
PM Modi had initially proposed the International Day of Yoga to the United Nations, and won approval in the same year. On June 21, 2015, the first International Yoga Day was observed across the world.
For the last five years, the Centre and state governments have celebrated Yoga Day with events which saw mass participation every year. However this year, those events have been pushed indoors due to the pandemic and social distancing measures.
PM Modi had set up a ministry to promote yoga, Ayurveda and other traditional Indian treatments when he came to power in 2014.