On the morning of 21 June 2026, dawn broke over Kolkata’s Red Road, the Hooghly carrying the reflections of five hundred boats, as India marked the twelfth International Day of Yoga with a message both understated and civilisational. What began as a UN resolution has grown into a grassroots movement now visible everywhere from neighbourhood parks to ancient monuments and global landmarks. With the Prime Minister leading the Common Yoga Protocol along Kolkata’s riverfront, this year’s event reinforced a simple truth: yoga has stopped being a once-a-year spectacle and become woven into ordinary Indian life.

This year’s theme, “Yoga for Healthy Ageing,” suited a nation that is simultaneously youthful and, in raw numbers, ageing fast. Lifestyle disorders now strike urban professionals in their forties while rural elders silently manage chronic conditions. Yoga answers this with something unglamorous but powerful: a daily practice that........

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