Team News Riveting
Kanyakumari, May 30
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday evening began his 45-hour-long meditation at the famed Vivekananda Rock Memorial here on Thursday evening.
Modi will be on a spiritual sojourn till June 1 evening, nearly 45 hours. He will meditate through day and night at the Dhyan Mandapam, the same place where Swami Vivekanand did meditation.
The Prime Minister reached from Thiruvananthapuram by a helicopter and offered prayer at the Bhagavathi Amman temple. He reached the rock memorial by a ferry service and started meditation. Clad in a dhoti and a white shawl, Modi prayed at the temple. The priests performed a special ‘arthi’ and he was given temple ‘prasad’ that included a shawl and a framed photograph of the presiding deity of the temple.
Ahead of his departure on June 1, Modi is likely to visit the Thiruvalluvar statue, next to the memorial. Both the memorial and 133 ft statue were built on tiny islets, that are separate and mound-like rocky formations in the sea.
All arrangements, including heavy security, are in place for the Prime Minister’s lengthy stay at the famed memorial. While security personnel teemed the memorial premises, security has been beefed up in the entire Kanyakumari district and about 2,000 police personnel have been deployed, besides heightened vigil by the Coast Guard and the Navy.
This is the first time the Prime Minister will be staying at the memorial, a monument built in tribute to Swami Vivekananda, who meditated over the rocks inside the sea towards the end of 1892. Modi had selected Kedarnath cave to reflect and meditate after the end of campaign in 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Now, he has chosen a spiritually significant place in the southernmost tip in the mainland of the country.
