February 16, 2026 03:04 am (IST)
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India joins rest of the world in celebrating May Day
New Delhi, May 1 (IBNS): India on Friday joined the rest of the world in commemorating May Day, which is observed as a public holiday in many countries.
May Day is related to the Celtic festival of Beltane and the Germanic festival of Walpurgis Night.
May Day falls exactly half a year from Nov 1, another cross-quarter day which is also associated with various northern European pagan and the year in the Northern hemisphere, and it has traditionally been an occasion for popular and often raucous celebrations.
May Day is also known as International Workers' Day. It is a celebration of the international labour movement and left-wing movements.
The day generally witnesses organized street demonstrations and marches hosted by working people and their labour unions across most parts of the world.
May 1 is a national holiday in more than 80 countries. It is also celebrated as holiday unofficially in many other countries.
May Day is a nationwide bank and public holiday in India.
The holiday is tied to labour movements for communist and socialist political parties.
In Maharashtra and Gujarat, it is officially called Maharashtra Day ('Maharashtra Din') and Gujarat Day respectively, since on this day in 1960 each attained statehood, after the old Bombay State became divided on linguistic lines.
The first May Day celebration in India was organised in Madras (now Chennai) by the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan on May 1, 1923.
This was also the first time the red flag was used in India.
To mark the occasion, popular search engine Google decorated its homepage with a colourful doodle dedicated to the day.
It used a G clamp, a pair of gloves, rolls of insulating tape, a wrench and a measuring tape along with a few stray screws to form the Google logo.
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