Chhath Puja is celebrated in Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, and parts of Uttar Pradesh with much pomp and enthusiasm. Devotees worship Surya Dev, the Hindu Sun God, during these four days. The festival falls on the sixth day of the Hindu lunar month of Kartika and is celebrated for four days. Accordingly, this year, the Chhath Puja festival will begin on November 17 (Friday) and continue till November 20.

Chhath Puja is also known as Surya Shashthi, Prathihar, Chhathi, and Dala Chhath.

Chhath Puja 2023 Day 1: Nahay Khay

It starts with the ritual of Nahay Khay (bathing and feasting) on the first day. Devotees take a bath in the river or pond and then eat a simple meal. On this day, people buy fruits and diyas (earthen lamps) for the puja, and clean the household. The fruits used in the puja are also symbolic of the harvest season.

Chhath Puja 2023 Day 2: Kharna

On the second day, called Kharna, devotees fast throughout the day, breaking it only after sunset as an offering to the deities. A prasad is provided to the Chhati Mata and distributed amongst relatives and friends.

Chhath Puja 2023 Day 3: Surya Shashth

The third day is when the main rituals start. Devotees, usually women, gather at the water bodies, be it rivers or ponds, before sunrise. Standing waist-deep in water, they offer arghya (offering of water) to the rising Sun. It will be special this year because the third day will fall on Sunday, the day associated with the Sun. People listen to the Chhath Vrat Katha and sing devotional songs at night.

Chhath Puja 2023 Day 4: Usha Arghya

On the last day of the Chhath Puja, Arghya is offered to the rising Sun in the morning. Usha is believed to be the consort of the Surya Dev. The 36-hour fast is completed after Arghya.

Shubh Timings for Chhath Puja 2023

Sunrise on Chhath Puja Day: 06:40 AM
Sunset on Chhath Puja Day: 05:26 PM

A Canadian man was “hunting for Muslims to kill” when he slammed his pickup truck into a family out on an evening stroll, the prosecution said in closing arguments Tuesday.

Nathaniel Veltman, now 22, is on trial for wiping out three generations of the Afzaal family in June 2021 in London, Ontario.

He pleaded not guilty to four counts of murder, which prosecutors say were premeditated, as well as one count of attempted murder.

The case marks the first time a Canadian jury has been asked to consider a terrorism motive related to white supremacy.

While acknowledging Veltman’s responsibility for the killings, the defense said he should be convicted of a lesser charge of manslaughter.

Prosecutor Fraser Ball told the jury they have “everything you could possibly need to convict in this case,” including the defendant’s confession to police.

He said Veltman had penned a “terrorist manifesto,” found on his computer, in which he espoused white nationalism and described his hate for Muslims.

The accused “dressed like a soldier” wearing body armor and a helmet, and “pumped himself up” before the attack. “He was hunting for Muslims to kill,” Fraser said.

‘Pedal to the metal’

When Veltman passed the Afzaal family on a London street, the Crown attorney said, he turned his pick-up truck around and accelerated “pedal to the metal,” jumping the curb as he drove into them.

Bodies flew into the air.

Salman Afzaal, 46, his wife Madiha Salman, 44, their 15-year-old daughter Yumnah and her grandmother Talat Afzaal, 74, were killed. A nine-year-old boy orphaned in the ramming suffered serious but non-life-threatening injuries.

Veltman was arrested in a nearby parking lot and told police he wanted to “send a strong message” against Muslim immigration.

Ball said that message was “brutal and terrifying: Leave this country or you and your loved ones could be next.”

Defense lawyer Christopher Hicks argued that Veltman suffered from mental disorders and childhood traumas that led to “depression and anxiety.”

He also consumed three grams of hallucinogenic psilocybin mushrooms prior to the attack that, according to Hicks, left him feeling detached or disconnected from reality “as if in a dream or surreal state, a state of extreme confusion wherein his brain was in turmoil.”

“He is responsible for the deaths of these people,” Hicks concluded, but added that Veltman did not have the necessary “mental acuity for planning and deliberation” for murder or terrorism.

Veltman faces up to life in prison if convicted of first-degree murder. Manslaughter carries a maximum penalty of seven years in prison.

This was the deadliest anti-Muslim attack in Canada since a shooting at a mosque in Quebec City in 2017 that left six dead. The perpetrator of that shooting was not charged with terrorism.

McDonald’s boss in Britain said Tuesday the US fast-food giant faces “one to two” sexual harassment allegations from workers every week, as he vowed to tackle the issue recently exposed by the BBC.

Alistair Macrow, chief executive of McDonald’s UK and Ireland, told a watchdog parliamentary committee that the chain’s management also receives around five reports a week of bullying.

He said that his employees’ accounts of alleged harassment and racism were “truly horrific and hard to listen to”.

It follows the BBC reporting in July numerous allegations of sexual misconduct, racism and bullying by staff at McDonald’s outlets in Britain.

The company says it has dismissed 18 employees and taken 75 disciplina measures, after examining 157 reported cases, since the scandal emerged.

Some 249 cases remain to be investigated, it has said.

Law firm Leigh Day recently launched group legal action against McDonald’s after the BBC aired the accusations, which included employees’ claims they were “groped and harassed almost routinely”.

McDonald’s UK opened a specialist unit to investigate the allegations, which stemmed from the accounts of around 100 staff, according to the British broadcaster.

Appearing before lawmakers in parliament, Macrow reiterated that he was “absolutely determined to root out any of these behaviours”.

He pledged to identify individuals who are responsible for them and “make sure they are eradicated from our business”.

But earlier in the hearing, union leaders claimed that, contrary to those assertions, the situation had not improved within McDonald’s since it launched its internal probes.

The unions also claim that the firm has a history of using out-of-court settlements in response to such allegations, including non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).

The Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union alleged four years ago that more than 1,000 female employees of the fast-food giant were victims of sexual harassment and abuse.

This year’s BBC investigation revealed that many female employees under the age of 18 reported being sexually or emotionally harassed.

One ex-employee, Shelby, who was only 16 when she started working at McDonald’s, told the broadcaster that she was constantly touched in an inappropriate and unwanted ways by older male employees in the kitchen.

The fast-food chain has 177,000 employees in the UK, many of whom are young workers, including teenagers.