How does India mark Carnival?
Viva Carnaval
- Local date
- February 6, 2027–February 9, 2027
- When is it?
- From the fiftieth to the forty-seventh day before Easter — the Saturday to the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday.
Goa's Carnival is a form left behind by Portuguese rule. The state Department of Tourism runs Viva Carnaval each year, spreading the float parades over four days and four towns — usually Panaji, Margao, Vasco and Mapusa — on the Saturday to Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. It appears in the department's annual state festivals calendar, and every float must have its design and theme approved in advance. Goa is the only Indian state that runs a pre-Lent carnival as an official event, and until 1961 it was the capital of Portuguese India.
What is this topic?
Carnival is not a public holiday in Brazil. It is a *ponto facultativo* — a discretionary day off that the management ministry designates by decree each year for federal offices, with Ash Wednesday running only until two in the afternoon. The largest festival on earth has no statutory holiday status in its own country; it rests on an administrative order reissued every year. The United States turned it into a Louisiana state holiday, Japan moved it to August and dropped the fast, and Goa kept the form left behind by Portuguese rule.
Sources and dates
Dates follow local time zones, calendars, and official notices. Check the source when a date is estimated or locally variable.