Holi 2023: The festival of colours and how it’s celebrated around the world

Published

2 years ago

March 5, 2023

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The Hindu festival of Holi is back for another year of colours, food fun and celebrations.

Marking the coming of spring and the end of winter, the annual festival will be celebrated on Wednesday 8 March this year.

Also known as the “festival of love”, “festival of spring” and the “festival of colours,” Holi is celebrated in many South Asian communities, including India, Pakistan, Nepal and across the world.

The celebrations are often separated into two days, known as Jalanewali Holi and Rangwali Holi.

Typically, Jalanewali Holi is the day when friends and family gather after sunset to light a bonfire and sometimes throw grains, popcorn and chickpeas into the fire during rituals.

Rangwali Holi is the second day of the festival and celebrates the beginning of spring, in which people come together to play with coloured powder and water.

The story of Holi

The ancient festival also welcomes the triumph of good over evil and one of the legends that marks where Holi may originate from is the story of Holika and Prahlad.

As the legend goes, Holika was the sister of an evil king named Hiranyakashipu, who had powers that made him feel invincible.

The king believed that the people in his kingdom should worship him – those that did not follow his orders would therefore be punished.

However, Hiranyakashipu’s son, Prahlad, did not want to worship his father and disobeyed the command.

Prahlad decided to worship a Hindu God named Vishnu instead.

The king felt betrayed by his son and in a rage, decided to kill Prahlad with the help of Holika, who had a special cloak that protected her from fire.

After the king’s order, Holika started the fire and sat in the flames with Prahlad, in hopes of killing him.

The cloak however ended up protecting Prahlad rather than Holika, which led to her death.

On that day, the king was also defeated by Vishnu and evil was overthrown by good – therefore marking the day many now call Holi.

The festival of colours

Central to many people’s beliefs, the story of Krishna and Radha also plays a big role in the festival of colours.

The Hindu deity fell in love with his milkmaid but was too embarrassed by his blue skin, as Radha was more fair in complexion.

In a playful exchange, Krishna coloured Radha’s face during a game after throwing water and powder – said to be one of the origins of the festival.

Their story has continued on for many years, with people throwing colours at one another to celebrate the special occasion and to remember the love between Krishna and Radha.

Who doesn’t like to indulge in a snack?

Food is also a big part of the celebrations during this time.

These small dumplings called Gujiya are a sweet-deep fried treat that many love to eat.

Dahi Vada is a snack prepared with yoghurt and fried lentil balls – originating from Karnataka in India.

Known as the fried fritter, Pakoras are often made using potatoes, onions and gram flour batter.

Holi celebrations around the world

The fun doesn’t end there, as people from different parts of the world come together every year with friends, family and neighbours to brighten up the streets.

The colourful powders hold many different meanings.

Red signifies love and fertility, green marks new beginnings and yellow is seen as the colour of happiness and peace.

Blue is seen as the colour of calmness, pink means good health, orange is a sign of courage and purple is said to bring peace and wisdom.

People are advised not to use white and black powder because white is mainly used for funerals and black is believed to be connected with negativity and darkness.

India

Nepal

Pakistan

Bangladesh

And that’s everything you need to know about the festival of colours.

Happy Holi!

World

What’s it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

Published

1 hour ago

August 22, 2025

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What's it like with the National Guard on the streets of DC?

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What’s it like on the streets of DC right now, as thousands of federal police patrol the streets?

Who is Steve Witkoff, the US envoy regularly meeting Vladimir Putin and Benjamin Netanyahu to broker peace in Ukraine and Gaza?

And why is Californian Governor Gavin Newsom now tweeting like Donald Trump?

Martha Kelner and Mark Stone answer your questions.

If you’ve also got a question you’d like the Trump100 team to answer, you can email it to trump100@sky.uk.

You can also watch all episodes on our YouTube channel.

World

It’s been a confusing week – and Trump’s been made to look weak

Published

1 hour ago

August 22, 2025

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It’s been a confusing week.

The Monday gathering of European leaders and Ukraine’s president with Donald Trump at the White House was highly significant.

Ukraine latest: Trump changes tack

The leaders went home buoyed by the knowledge that they’d finally convinced the American president not to abandon Europe. He had committed to provide American “security guarantees” to Ukraine.

The details were sketchy, and sketched out only a little more through the week (we got some noise about American air cover), but regardless, the presidential commitment represented a clear shift from months of isolationist rhetoric on Ukraine – “it’s Europe’s problem” and all the rest of it.

Yet it was always the case that, beyond that clear achievement for the Europeans, Russia would have a problem with it.

Trump’s envoy’s language last weekend – claiming that Putin had agreed to Europe providing “Article 5-like” guarantees for Ukraine, essentially providing it with a NATO-like collective security blanket – was baffling.

Russia gives two fingers to the president

And throughout this week, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeatedly and predictably undermined the whole thing, pointing out that Russia would never accept any peace plan that involved any European or NATO troops in Ukraine.

“The presence of foreign troops in Ukraine is completely unacceptable for Russia,” he said yesterday, echoing similar statements stretching back years.

Remember that NATO’s “eastern encroachment” was the justification for Russia’s “special military operation” – the invasion of Ukraine – in the first place. All this makes Trump look rather weak.

It’s two fingers to the president, though interestingly, the Russian language has been carefully calibrated not to poke Trump but to mock European leaders instead. That’s telling.

The bilateral meeting (between Putin and Zelenskyy) hailed by Trump on Monday as agreed and close – “within two weeks” – looks decidedly doubtful.

Maybe that’s why he went along with Putin’s suggestion that there be a bilateral, not including Trump, first.

It’s easier for the American president to blame someone else if it’s not his meeting, and it doesn’t happen.

NATO defence chiefs met on Wednesday to discuss the details of how the security guarantees – the ones Russia won’t accept – will work.

European sources at the meeting have told me it was all a great success. And to the comments by Lavrov, a source said: “It’s not up to Lavrov to decide on security guarantees. Not up to the one doing the threatening to decide how to deter that threat!”

The argument goes that it’s not realistic for Russia to say from which countries Ukraine can and cannot host troops.

Would Trump threaten force?

The problem is that if Europe and the White House want Russia to sign up to some sort of peace deal, then it would require agreement from all sides on the security arrangements.

The other way to get Russia to heel would be with an overwhelming threat of force. Something from Trump, like: “Vladimir – look what I did to Iran…”. But, of course, Iran isn’t a nuclear power.

Something else bothers me about all this. The core concept of a “security guarantee” is an ironclad obligation to defend Ukraine into the future.

Future guarantees would require treaties, not just a loose promise. I don’t see Trump’s America truly signing up to anything that obliges them to do anything.

A layered security guarantee which builds over time is an option, but from a Kremlin perspective, would probably only end up being a repeat of history and allow them another “justification” to push back.

Image and reality don’t seem to match

Among Trump’s stream of social media posts this week was an image of him waving his finger at Putin in Alaska. It was one of the few non-effusive images from the summit.

He posted it next to an image of former president Richard Nixon confronting Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev – an image that came to reflect American dominance over the Soviet Union.

That may be the image Trump wants to portray. But the events of the past week suggest image and reality just don’t match.

The past 24 hours in Ukraine have been among the most violent to date.

World

At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

Published

1 hour ago

August 22, 2025

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At least 17 dead in Colombia after car bombing and helicopter attack

At least 17 people were killed after a car bombing and an attack on a police helicopter in Colombia, officials have said.

Authorities in the southwest city of Cali said a vehicle loaded with explosives detonated near a military aviation school, killing five people and injuring more than 30.

Authorities said at least 12 died in the attack on a helicopter transporting personnel to an area in Antioquia in northern Colombia, where they were to destroy coca leaf crops – the raw material used in the production of cocaine.

Antioquia governor Andres Julian said a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

He said the aircraft was targeted in retaliation for a cocaine seizure that allegedly belonged to the Gulf Clan.

Who are FARC, and are they still active?

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a Marxist guerrilla organisation, was the largest of the country’s rebel groups, and grew out of peasant self-defence forces.

It was formed in 1964 as the military wing of the Colombian Communist Party, carrying out a series of attacks against political and economic targets.

In 2016, after more than 50 years of civil war, FARC rebels and the Colombian government signed a peace deal.

It officially ceased to be an armed group the following year – but some small dissident groups rejected the agreement and refused to disarm.

According to a report by Colombia’s Truth Commission in 2022, fighting between government forces, FARC, and the militant group National Liberation Army had killed around 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018.

Both FARC dissidents and members of the Gulf Clan operate in Antioquia.

It comes as a report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime found that coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia.

The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the UN’s latest available report.