NEW YEAR 2020

NEW 

 YEAR

2020

 

New Year is the time or day at which a new calendar year begins and the calendar's year count increments by one.

Many cultures celebrate the event in some manner and the 1st day of January is often marked as a national holiday.

In the Gregorian calendar, the most widely used calendar system today, New Year occurs on January 1 (New Year's Day). This was also the first day of the year in the original Julian calendar and of the Roman calendar (after 153 BC).

During the Middle Ages in western Europe, while the Julian calendar was still in use, authorities moved New Year's Day, depending upon locale, to one of several other days, including March 1, March 25, Easter, September 1, and December 25. Beginning in 1582, the adoptions of the Gregorian calendar has meant that many national or local dates in the Western World and beyond have changed to using one fixed date for New Year's Day, January 1.

Other cultures observe their traditional or religious New Years Day according to their own customs, sometimes in addition to a (Gregorian) civil calendar. Chinese New Year, the Islamic New Year, the traditional Japanese New Year and the Jewish New Year are the more well-known examples. India and other countries continue to celebrate New Year on different dates.

Why Do We Celebrate New Year's on Jan. 1?

It's the end of the year: time to start fresh, make resolutions and get ready for 2017.

But as the world counts down to midnight, let's take a moment to question why people around the planet are celebrating the new year at that very moment.

It turns out that the new year wasn't always on Jan. 1, and still isn't in some cultures.

The ancient Mesopotamians celebrated their 12-day-long New Year's festival of Akitu on the vernal equinox, while the Greeks partied around the winter solstice, on Dec. 20. The Roman historian Censorius, meanwhile, reported that the Egyptians celebrated another lap around the sun on July 20, according to a 1940 article in the journal the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society.

During the Roman era, March marked the beginning of the calendar. Then, in 46 B.C., Julius Caesar created the Julian calendar, which set the new year when it is celebrated today.

But even Julius Caesar couldn't standardize the day. New Year's celebrations continued to drift back and forth in the calendar, even landing on Christmas Day at some points, until Pope Gregory XIII implemented the Gregorian calendar in 1582. The Gregorian calendar was an attempt to make the calendar stop wandering with respect to the seasons. Because the Julian calendar had a few extra leap years than was necessary, by the 1500s, the first day of spring came 10 days earlier.

Though the selection of the new year is essentially arbitrary from a planetary perspective, there is one noteworthy astronomical event that occurs around this time: The Earth is closest to the sun in early January, a point known as the perihelion.

Nowadays, Jan. 1 is almost universally recognized as the beginning of the new year, though there are a few holdouts: Afghanistan, Ethiopian, Iran, Nepal and Saudi Arabia rely on their own calendrical conventions.

Different religions also celebrate their New Year's at different times. For instance, the Jewish calendar is lunar, and its New Year's festival, Rosh Hashanah, is typically celebrated between September and October. The Islamic calendar is also lunar, and the timing of the new year can drift significantly. For instance, in 2008, the Islamic New Year was celebrated on Dec. 29. The Chinese calendar, meanwhile, is also lunar, but the Chinese New Year falls between Jan. 21 and Feb. 20.

 

The Hindu New Year

There are numerous days throughout the year celebrated as New Year's Day in the different regions of India. Observance is determined by whether the lunar calendar is being following or the solar calendar. Those regions which follow the Solar calendar, the new year falls on Sankranti of the first month of the calendar, i.e., Vaishakha. Generally, this day falls during 14th or 15th of the month of April. Those following Lunar calendars consider the month of Chaitra (corresponding to March-April) as the first month of the year, so the new year is celebrated on the first day of this month. Similarly, few regions in India consider the period between consecutive Sankarantis as one month and few others take the period between consecutive Purnimas as a month.

When is the Hindu new year? 

For telugu people like us the hindu new year is called as Yugādi. “Yuga” means year “Adi” means starting. Yugādi is the New Year's Day for the people of the Telugu,and Kannada communities in India. It falls on a different day every year because the Hindu calendar is a lunisolar calendar. This holiday is one of the most auspicious days for Telugus and Kannadigas. The Saka calendar begins with the month of Chaitra (March–April) and Ugadi marks the first day of the new year. Chaitra is the first month in Panchanga which is the Indian calendar. In some parts of India it is known as Vikram Samvat or Bhartiya Nav Varsh. This holiday is mostly prevalent in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. Gudi Padwa, which is the Marathi new year, is also celebrated on the same day. We celebrate Yugādi on 18 th of March 2018.

We prepare Yugādi Pacchadi on new year day. The Yugādi Pacchadi reminds the people that the following year as all of life will consist of not just sweet experiences, but a combination of sweet, sour, salty, and bitter episodes. Just as the different substances are bound together, one is reminded that no event or episode is wholly good or bad. Even in the midst of bitter experiences, there are sweet moments. One is also reminded that the experience of taste is transitory and ephemeral; so too, is life, and one has to learn to put pain and pleasure in proper temporal perspective. We also prepare special dishes like Bobbattlu. It consists of a filling (gram and jaggery/sugar boiled and made into a paste) stuffed in a flat roti-like bread. It is usually eaten hot or cold with coconut granules as topping.