Due to COVID-19 people went back to original Indian ethos, practices: Jitendra Singh

New Delhi: Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday said the coronavirus pandemic has enabled people to go back to original Indian ethos, and practices like hand washing and 'namaste' have come in vogue with greater vigour. He said COVID-19 has awakened in all the importance of healthcare as a national priority and also made the world aware of the virtues of social distancing, cleanliness, yoga, ayurveda and traditional medicine.

"Now they have come to trust this much more than earlier and there is a renewed interest in yoga and ayurveda which have always been the thrust areas for Prime Minister Narendra Modi," said Singh the Minister of State for Personnel.

Addressing a session with spiritual leader Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev on 'Inner Engineering -- Technologies for Well Being' at the Indian Institute of Public Administration (IIPA) here, the minister said during the coronavirus-induced lockdown, many people resorted to yoga not only to seek strengthen their immunity but also to get over the pangs of loneliness and anxiety.


One of the fallout of the post-COVID era would be that even after the disease is gone, those who have become habitual of practising yoga during the lockdown period will most likely continue to do so for the rest of their lives, thus turning it into a lifetime blessing, Singh said according to a Personnel Ministry statement.

The ultimate aim of good governance is to bring ease of living for the common citizens and strongly supported Vasudev for saying that happy and joyful administrators will spread happiness in every sphere of life.

Vasudev said India had always been a land of seekers with no rigid belief system. It never had a culture of conquest, but it was always a land of enquiry and added that we must maintain this ethos for our republic to thrive on, he said according to the statement.

He said fighting coronavirus demands a conscious and responsible behaviour and this is all the more relevant for leaders and administrators for delivering greater good to common man.

Justice M N Bhandari of the Allahabad High Court, Vice President of IIPA Shekhar Dutt, Director, IIPA, S N Tripathi, Surabhi Pandey, Amitabh Ranjan, Navaljit Kapoor and other senior officials and faculty of IIPA took part in the event.