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New Year

About New Year

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What is New Year?

'New Year' is an event that takes place when the world celebrates the end of one year, and the beginning of the next. In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system today, the first day of January is often considered as a national holiday across the globe.  However, in some countries like China, the first day of the year is celebrated according to their own calendar.
 

New Year's eve celebration

In many cities across the world, firework displays take place as soon as the clock strikes midnight on the last day of the year (December 31).

Conventionally, Sydney has been the host to one of the first of these celebrations as New Year arrives there before most other major cities. New Year’s Day celebrations vary widely across different cultures, and certain parts of the world have specific traditions associated with the day.
 
Celebrations such as parties, concerts, parades, church services, family meals etc. are held worldwide on January 1 as part of New Year's Day, and many start celebrating the day before (on New Year's Eve) and go on past midnight into January 1.
 
People dress colorfully and indulge in fun-filled activities such as dancing, singing, playing games, and attending parties. Night clubs, movie theatres, resorts, restaurants and amusement parks are filled with people of all ages on the new year's eve. People greet and wish each other 'Happy New Year', and exchanging messages, greeting cards and gifts are part of the 'New Year' celebration.
 
Cultural or religious events are organised during this time, and people visit places of worship on the first day of the new year.
 

New Year's History

Civilizations around the world have been celebrating the beginning of each new year for decades. The city of Babylon in ancient Mesopotamia was where the first New Year's celebrations took place about 4,000 years ago. New year's day is considered to have a Romanian origin.
 
The Roman king Numa Pompilius, during his reign (c. 715–673 BCE), revised the Roman republican calendar so that January replaced March as the first month. In 46 BCE Julius Caesar introduced more changes, though the Julian calendar, as it became known, retained January 1 as the year’s opening date.
 
In some cultures, the New Year's Day coincided with the Annunciation of Jesus. In England, the Feast of the Annunciation on March 25, was the first day of the new year until the adoption of the Gregorian calendar in 1752. It is also believed that the tradition of exchanging gifts on New Year's Day originated in the 7th century. Over time non-Christian countries also began to use the Gregorian calendar. China (1912) is a notable example, though it continued to celebrate the Chinese New Year according to a lunar calendar. In fact, many countries that follow the Gregorian calendar also have other traditional or religious calendars. Some nations never adopted the Gregorian calendar and thus start the year on dates other than January 1. Ethiopia, for example, celebrates its New Year (known as Enkutatash) in September.
 

Which country celebrates New Year first?

The New Year is celebrated first in Oceania, and the event is first celebrated on the small Pacific island nations of Tonga, Samoa, and Kiribati. New Zealand follows next in celebrating the New Year, followed by Australia, Japan, and South Korea, while the last place to celebrate New Year is Bakers Island which lies in the central Pacific Ocean.
 

New Year's day in India

New Year’s Day on January 1 is a restricted holiday when the government offices and most businesses remain open, and public transport remains also available. Mostly people report late to work on January 1 due to late night celebrations, and the security is tightened in prime cities as incidents of molestation and fights have been rising since last few years. The arrival of foreign tourists is at its peak during the New Year’s Day, especially in locations, which are known to be a favorite tourist destinations.

Latest Updates on New Year

Gudi Padwa 2023 will be marked on March 22, 2023, which is the first day of the Hindu calendar month of Chaitra

Updated On: 22 Mar 2023 | 12:05 PM IST

MakeMyTrip expects higher air travel demand for Republic Day weekend compared to the new year's eve weekend

Updated On: 21 Jan 2023 | 6:47 PM IST

New Year started on a super bad note for tech employees as e-commerce giant Amazon and enterprise-software company Salesforce together announced to lay off more than 25,000 workers

Updated On: 07 Jan 2023 | 10:43 AM IST

RIL rose 1.06 per cent and contributed the most to the Sensex, followed by ICICI bank, which rose 1.3 per cent

Updated On: 03 Jan 2023 | 12:05 AM IST

Travel tech firm OYO witnessed a record 4.5 lakh-plus bookings on New Year's eve, its highest bookings per hotel per day for India in the last 5 years, Founder and Group CEO Ritesh Agarwal said.

Updated On: 02 Jan 2023 | 11:34 PM IST

The number of people dying from Covid-19 over the last three months in Japan is nearly 16 times higher than during the same period last year

Updated On: 02 Jan 2023 | 1:42 PM IST

Of these, 87 were road accident victims who were taken to the emergency units of government and hospitals across the city

Updated On: 02 Jan 2023 | 10:06 AM IST

The air quality in the national capital is in the 'very poor' category on Monday with the Air Quality Index reaching 301.

Updated On: 02 Jan 2023 | 9:37 AM IST

Recently lifted Covid restrictions also gave China a chance to gather and celebrate

Updated On: 02 Jan 2023 | 12:54 AM IST

Massive traffic jams were witnessed on Sunday in several parts of the national capital, including at Connaught Place and India Gate, where thousands of people gathered to celebrate the New Year

Updated On: 01 Jan 2023 | 9:08 PM IST

Food delivery app Swiggy delivered 350k biryani orders on Saturday and the app dispatched over 250k pizzas across the country, according to company sources

Updated On: 01 Jan 2023 | 8:57 PM IST

Large crowds thronged popular boulevards, tourist hubs across India and many joined special prayers at places of worship as people stepped out to celebrate the New Year without Covid restrictions

Updated On: 01 Jan 2023 | 8:13 PM IST

The Dearness Allowance (DA) for government employees including teachers, pensioners and family pensioners would be increased from 34 per cent to 38 per cent with immediate effect, CM M K Stalin said

Updated On: 01 Jan 2023 | 4:31 PM IST

Business Standard brings you the top headlines at this hour

Updated On: 01 Jan 2023 | 9:30 AM IST

South Korea's military said the missile travelled about 400 kilometers (250 miles) before falling into the waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan

Updated On: 01 Jan 2023 | 8:19 AM IST

Some soldiers in Ukraine who said they usually celebrate the holiday with family decided to stay in the trenches as they sought to defend their country

Updated On: 01 Jan 2023 | 7:43 AM IST

Let us usher in the new year with a resolve to take India to greater heights of progress and prosperity

Updated On: 31 Dec 2022 | 11:32 PM IST

A total of 125 spots in the city have been identified to check drunk driving Delhi CP

Updated On: 31 Dec 2022 | 11:30 PM IST

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu had a stroll on the Mall Road on New Year's eve on Saturday evening

Updated On: 31 Dec 2022 | 10:09 PM IST

Alok Sharma, a former Cabinet-level minister in the UK and Cambridge Professor Partha Sarathi Dasgupta are among prominent Indian-origin people honoured by King Charles III on his first New Year

Updated On: 31 Dec 2022 | 1:59 PM IST