Visual from Gulmarg, Kashmir. (Express photo: Shuaib Masoodi)Happy New Year 2021 Celebrations Live Updates: After a year of the pandemic, which brought with it deaths, lockdowns, economic insecurities and anxiety, the world is set for a new beginning in 2021. Earlier today, people across the globe bid adieu to 2020, and welcomed the new year with hopes of happiness and prosperity.
However, several countries are witnessing tepid New Year celebrations as the risk of Covid-19 is not over yet. From New York’s Times Square to Sydney Harbor, big public revelries have been turned into TV-only shows and digital events, reported The Associated Press. Germany has banned the sale of fireworks, which residents usually set off in on the streets, and a pyrotechnics show at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate has been called off. Similar is the case of the fireworks show over the River Thames in locked-down London.
Happy New Year 2021 Wishes Images, Status, Quotes, Messages, Photos, and Pics
In India, Delhi has announced night curfew on New Year’s Eve, restricting more than five people to assemble at a public place. According to the order, no celebratory events, congregations and gatherings at public places are permitted from 11 pm of December 31 to 6 am of January 1, 2021. Bengaluru, too, has imposed Section 144 from 6 pm of December 31 to 6 am of January 1, 2021. In Maharashtra, while hotels, restaurants, pubs and bars will close at 11 pm and large gatherings are prohibited in public places, families can hold parties in residential places provided it is a small group and social distancing norms are maintained. In Ahmedabad, the restrictions will be effective between 10 pm, Thursday and 6 am Friday. The police have restricted hotels from hosting any late-night parties on New Year Eve on Thursday.
It was the year when the people claimed the public space, when barriers were erected in their way, and when a powerful virus sought to push them back into private corners and places. 2020 began with people’s sit-ins against a discriminatory citizenship law in open spaces and mohallas across the country; it is ending with farmers’ dharnas on the borders of the national capital against laws that have stoked unaddressed anxieties. The anti-CAA protesters were dispersed by the onset of the pandemic but the farmers’ protests have seemed undeterred by the still raging public health emergency — the government sought to paint both as misguided and as a conspiracy but in the latter case has, belatedly but wisely, kept the door open for discussion. In between, the year of the coronavirus saw the very idea and reality of the public sphere become embattled and besieged in new and never-before ways. As people and institutions receded behind a mask, and swaddled themselves in PPEs, it also brought home the necessity in the new year of stepping out again — into shared spaces made more precious by being threatened, commons that must now be made larger and more encompassing. Read more here.
Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal extends wishes
Rahul Gandhi extends New Year wishes, tweets: "My heart is with the farmers and labourers fighting unjust forces with dignity and honour."
After a year of the pandemic, which brought with it deaths, lockdowns, economic insecurities and anxiety, the world is set for a new beginning in 2021. Earlier today, people across the globe bid adieu to 2020, and welcomed the new year with hopes of happiness and prosperity.
However, several countries are witnessing tepid New Year celebrations as the risk of Covid-19 is not over yet. From New York’s Times Square to Sydney Harbor, big public revelries have been turned into TV-only shows and digital events, reported The Associated Press.
In India, Delhi and many other cities have announced night curfew on New Year’s Eve, restricting gatherings at public places. Germany has banned the sale of fireworks, which residents usually set off in on the streets, and a pyrotechnics show at Berlin’s Brandenburg Gate has been called off. Similar is the case of the fireworks show over the River Thames in locked-down London.
Police tighten vigil across Bengaluru city
Heavy security deployed at Delhi's Connaught Place on New Year Eve. The city has announced a night curfew on New Year’s eve restricting more than five people to assemble at a public place.
On New Year's Eve, the British government is running ads imploring people not to celebrate with anyone outside their household.
The campaign is urging Britons to “see in the New Year safely at home.”
No parties, no hugging strangers, no mass choruses of “Auld Lang Syne.”
Stephen Powis, medical director of the National Health Service in England, says “COVID loves a crowd”.
Most of the country''s population is under lockdown measures to slow the spread of a new, easily transmissible coronavirus strain. Social gatherings involving multiple households are barred. Police will be patrolling to deter groups planning to celebrate or to mark Britain''s final economic split from the European Union. (AP)
The new year festivities in Bengaluru will be lacklustre this year following the prohibitory orders imposed by the city police to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and its new variant.
Chennai will also see virtually no public celebrations as the government has already banned such festivities in restaurants, hotels, clubs and resorts, including beach resorts, on Thursday and Friday.
The Bengaluru police have imposed prohibitory orders under section 144 of the CrPC from 6 pm on Thursday to 6 am Friday.
The city is known for its grand gala celebrations during the New Year and the major hub of activities used to be MG Road, Church Street, Brigade Road, Koramangala and Indiranagar.
Now, according to the order passed by the Bengaluru Police Commissioner Kamal Pant, these places are "No-Man Zones."
To prevent the unnecessary travelling in the night, the police closed major flyovers for traffic.
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One million people would usually crowd the Sydney Harbor to watch the annual fireworks that center on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. But this year authorities advised revelers to watch the fireworks on television as the two most populous states, New South Wales and Victoria battle to curb new COVID-19 outbreaks.
The first time January 1 came to be considered as the beginning of the new year was back in 45 BCE. The Roman calendar before that began in the month of March and consisted of 355 days. An additional 27-day or 28-day intercalary month would sometimes be inserted between February and March.
It was Roman dictator Julius Caesar who reformed the calendar soon after coming to power in the late first century BCE. But even as the Julian calendar gained popularity, large parts of Europe did not accept it till well into the mid-16th century CE. With the advent of Christianity, January 1 as the beginning of a new year was seen as pagan, while December 25, with its religious connotations regarding the birth of Jesus, was considered more acceptable. Read more here
A four-day lockdown is set to begin in Turkey at 9 p.m. Thursday — New Year’s Eve — in a bid to stem the spread of COVID-19, and measures against New Year’s gatherings are to be enforced.
Turkey’s president has warned parties will not be allowed and law enforcement will monitor for any violations. The interior ministry said gathering would be banned “not as a preference but as a necessity” for public health.
Istanbul’s governor said Thursday some 34,000 law enforcement personnel would be on duty to enforce the rules in Turkey’s most populous city. The interior ministry announced more than 208,000 officers would be working across the country and have set up thousands of control points.
Tourists, who have so far been exempt from lockdowns, will also not be allowed to go to symbolic squares and avenues. (AP)
New York City police turned to familiar tactics ahead of Thursday's New Year's Eve celebrations, deploying bomb-sniffing dogs and sand-filled sanitation trucks intended to guard against explosions. But the department's playbook this year includes an unusual mandate: preventing crowds of any size from gathering in Times Square.
Citing concerns over the spread of COVID-19, police closed the Crossroads of the World to vehicles and pedestrians at midnight and said they would disperse any onlookers venturing into a so-called “frozen zone' — the blocks surrounding the ball that historically draw shoulder-to-shoulder crowds.
The coronavirus has upended public life for months, and New Year's Eve will be no different. This year, police said, revelers headed to Times Square won't be permitted past police lines. (AP)
Residents of Kolkata were seen thronging fine dining restaurants from Christmas to New Year's eve, shedding their COVID fears. Owners of several renowned restaurants in the metropolis have reported increased footfalls in the last one week. Nitin Kothari, owner of Park Street restaurants 'Peter Cat' and 'Mocambo', said the establishments have remained filled till late evening hours in the last few days.
"We have reduced the number of seats by half from 180 in each restaurant as per the COVID-19 norms but there has not been a decline in the number of patrons," Kothari told PTI. To supplement the reduced number of seats, home delivery has increased and now comprises a significant part of the day's sale in both the restaurants, he said. (PTI)