On January 22, 2024, the idol of Ram Lalla was consecrated in the new temple at Ayodhya. The auspicious moment lasted 84 seconds, from 12:29:08 to 12:30:32. Pandit Ganeshwar Shastri Dravid of Kashi had fixed it.
Some parents planned births for the same day. At one hospital in Surat, doctors performed more than 22 cesarean deliveries, “all mothers choosing this date for their babies’ arrival.”
On Diwali, India’s stock exchanges hold a one-hour session called Muhurat trading. It marks the start of the new Samvat year. On October 21, 2025, the NSE and the BSE opened the session at 1:45 p.m. for the start of Samvat 2082.
The Confederation of All India Traders expected about 48 lakh weddings, 4.8 million, between November 12 and December 16, 2024. The season began on Dev Uthani Ekadashi. CAIT counted 18 auspicious wedding dates in it, up from 11 the year before. A pause of about a month was to follow, until mid-January.
Vidyarambham means the beginning of learning. It is a ceremony before a child starts formal education, and it is popular in South India. On Vijayadashami, the father or a teacher holds the child’s finger and traces a mantra in grains of rice. Then the letters of the child’s own language are written.
Vijayadashami, the last day of Navaratri, “is considered auspicious for beginning learning in any field.”
Chandrayaan-3 was launched to the Moon on July 14, 2023. The day before, a team of ISRO scientists visited the Venkateswara temple at Tirupati. They took a miniature model of the spacecraft with them. ISRO’s chairman, S. Somanath, prayed at the Sri Chengalamma temple.
On October 31, 2013, Narendra Modi, then Chief Minister of Gujarat, laid the foundation stone of the Statue of Unity, a statue of Vallabhbhai Patel. It was the 138th anniversary of Patel’s birth.
On October 31, 2018, Modi, now Prime Minister, inaugurated it. At 182 meters, it is the tallest statue in the world.
On March 6, 2026, Karnataka’s Chief Minister Siddaramaiah presented the state budget at 10:15 a.m. instead of 11 a.m. Rahu Kaala, a daily period of about ninety minutes that many regard as inauspicious, began at 10:30 that day.
He later said that his family and officials had advised him to avoid it. “I didn’t want to disappoint them or hurt their feelings,” he said. “This is the first time in my political career that I did so.” He added that he still does not believe in good or bad times.
On Poila Boishakh, the first day of the Bengali year, traders close their old ledgers and open new ones. The custom is called haal khata. Customers are invited to settle old debts and start fresh. “Seeking to improve their relationship with customers, traders give sweets, snacks, or gifts to them,” Wikipedia notes. It is kept in West Bengal, Tripura and the Barak Valley of Assam, and in Bangladesh.
On December 13, 2018, K. Chandrasekhar Rao was sworn in as chief minister of Telangana at 1:25 in the afternoon. Priests of the Yadadri Lakshminarasimha Swamy temple had fixed the time. “The auspicious period will continue for another one-and-a-half hour,” the head priest said.
Earlier that year Rao had dissolved the state assembly at a time given by priests of the Sringeri Mutt.
Bas paanch minute. Just five minutes. In its video series Desi D, The Quint jokes about Indian stretchable time and about people who “say they are just five minutes away” when they are not even ready.