International Friendship Day [ First Sunday of August ]

04 August 2013 :: International Friendship Day  is a day for celebrating friendship. The day has been celebrated in several southern South American countries for many years, particularly in Paraguay, where the first World Friendship Day was proposed in 1958.

 Initially created by the greeting card industry, evidence from social networking sites shows a revival of interest in the holiday that may have grown with the spread of the Internet, particularly in India, Bangladesh, and Malaysia. Digital communication modes such as the Internet and mobile phones may be helping to popularize the custom, since greeting friends en masse is now easier than before.

Friendship Day was originally promoted by Joyce Hall, the founder of Hallmark cards in 1930, intended to be 2^nd of  August and a day when people celebrated their friendships by sending cards. The second of August was chosen as the centre of the largest lull between holiday celebrations. Friendship Day was promoted by the greeting card National Association during the 1920s but met with consumer resistance – given that it was her too obviously a commercial gimmick to promote greetings cards. By the 1940s the number of Friendship Day cards available in the US had dwindled and the holiday largely died out there. There is no evidence to date for its uptake in Europe; however, it has been kept alive and revitalised in Asia, where several countries have adopted it.ome friends acknowledge each other with exchanges of gifts and cards on this day. Friendship bands are very popular in India, Nepal, Bangladesh and parts of South America. With the advent of social networking sites, Friendship Day is also being celebrated online.  The commercialization of the Friendship Day celebrations has led to some dismissing it as a “marketing gimmick”. But nowadays it is celebrated on the first Sunday of August rather than 30 July. However, on 27 July 2011 the 65th Session of the United Nations General Assembly declared 30 July as “International Day of Friendship”.

Lens man :: Gagan Deep Singh.