INTRODUCTION
People around the world have been celebrating the beginning of each new year for at least four millennia. In present day, most New Year’s event begin on December 31, the last day of the Gregorian calendar, and continue into the early hours of January 1. Most countries are having the Gregorian calendar as their de facto calendar today, New Year's Day is among the most important public holidays in the world, often celebrated with fireworks displays as the New Year starts in each time zone. Other common New Year's Day traditions include attending parties, making resolutions for the new year and calling one's family and friends.
GREGORIAN CALENDER HISTORY
The Gregorian Calendar is the internationally used calendar in the world today. It is also known as western or Christian calendar. It was introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in October 1582 as a slight modification of the Julian Calender, decreasing the average year from 365.25 days to 365.2425 days, and conforming for the drift in the 'tropical' or 'solar' that the deception had caused during the intervening centuries. The Julian calendar was replaced because it did not accurately reflect the actual time it takes the Earth to orbit once around the Sun, known as a tropical year.
It is a solar calendar having 365-day common year divided into 12 months of non-uniform lengths. 11 of the months have either 30 or 31 days, while the month of February, has only 28 days during the common year. However, almost every four years is a leap year, when one more or intercalary day, is added on 29 February, forming the leap year in the Gregorian calendar 366 days long. The days of the year in this calendar are divided into 7-day weeks, and the weeks are marked from 1 to 52 or 53.
Catholic countries, such as Brazil, Portugal, and Italy, immediatey adopted Pope Gregory’s calendar improvements for their civil affairs. In Europe's Protestant countries, however, people were scared that the new calendar was an effort by the Catholic Church to stop their movement. The Julian calendar is still followed in conservative countries even longer, and their national churches have not adopted Pope Gregory XIII’s calendar yet.
HAS THE YEAR ALWAYS STARTED ON 1ST JANUARY?
Julius Caesar made 1 January the start of the year, when he introduced his calendar in 45 B.C.E. and 1st January was ever the date on which the Golden Number and the Solar Number were incremented. Nevertheless, the church didn’t like the wild celebration that used to happen at the beginning of the new year, and in C.E. 567 the council of Tours proclaimed that having the year start on 1 January was an ancient blunder that should be revoked. Different New Year dates were used in the middle ages.
Deciding the right interpretation of a year number is not an easy task, so much extra as one country might use dissimilar systems for religious and civil requirements. The Byzantine Empire had a year starting on 1 Sep, because they counted years since the origin of the world which they dated to 1 September 5509 B.C.E. Around 1600 most countries have used 1 January as the first day of the year. England and Italy, although, did not make 1 January official until 1750.
It is sometimes asserted that having the year start on 1 January was part of the Gregorian calendar changes. This is not correct. This fallacy has possibly started because in 1752 England moved the start of the year to 1 January and also switched to the Gregorian calendar. But in majority of other countries the two events were not connected. For instance, Scotland switched to the Gregorian calendar together with England in 1752, but they moved the beginning of the year to 1 January in 1600.
POST COVID REGULATIONS IN INDIA FOR NEW YEAR EVE CELEBRATION
This New Year's Eve is being like none other amid scare of new Covid-19 strain, with pandemic restrictive limits and the world bidding farewell to a year they'd prefer to forget. With state governments and police declaring many restrictions, with prohibiting gathering of more than five people on the events and on roads, shows or programmes, Indians will face more restrained New Year's celebrations this year. The Central government has recommended SOPs to keep large crowd to a minimum as the highly aggressive strain of the Covid-19 has appeared in the country.
In Delhi, night curfew has been announced from 11 pm and 6 am. However, Traffic movement will not be prohibited. To relieve overcrowding on New Year's Celebration DMRC declared that exit from Rajiv Chowk metro station will not be permitted after 9 pm onwards.
Night curfew with same hours has been declared in Mumbai also. Large gatherings have been restricted, but there will be no prohibitions on visiting relatives, closed ones and public places in groups of four persons. The use of face masks and social distancing will remain compulsory, the Mumbai Police stated, warning that drones will be used for observation.
Orders restricting large gatherings will be imposed in Bengaluru. The city police commissioner has stated. The government, through guidelines and orders, has restricted parties, and special events at clubs, restaurants, hotels and other places that attract people in huge numbers without social distancing.
NEW YEAR CELEBRATION 2021
New Year's celebration experiences in Asia and the South Pacific varied much depending on the situation, similar to the pandemic itself. Some major cities restricted their traditional celebrations, while in few places without any restrictions carried on like any other year. Australia was among the first nations to celebrate the new year in 2021 because of its closeness to the international date-line. In past years 1 million people gathered Sydney’s harbor to watch fireworks celebration. But now, most watched on television, phones as authorities recommended residents to stay home while battling the pandemic.
Seoul's city government in South Korea abondened its annual New Year’s Eve bell-ringing ceremony for the first time since 1953. The ceremony normally gathers around 100,000 people and is broadcast live.
New Zealand, that has no active COVID-19 cases had New Year’s celebrations as usual. While in Japan, people welcomed 2021 silently at home, scared after Tokyo reported a record daily number of confirmed coronavirus cases. Most of the Indians planned to welcome the new year with subdued celebrations at home because of night curfews, a ban on beach parties and limitations on movement in major cities and towns after the new, more aggressive strain of the coronavirus reached the country.
CONCLUSION
The foremost recording of New Year celebration is believed to have been in Mesopotamia. The Gregorian calender changes bring back January 1 as new year's day in 1582. Despite the fact that most Catholic countries adopted the Gregorian calendar almost instantly, it was only moderately adopted among Protestant countries. The world entered a new beginning in 2021 after a year of pandemic, which brought anxiety, lockdowns, deaths, negativity. People across the globe bid farewell to 2020, and welcomed the new year with hopes of joy, gladness and prosperity.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
4.https://english.jagran.com/lifestyle/new-year-2021-celebrations-live-news-latest-updates-pictures-covid19-pandemic-new-year-s-eve-10021788
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