Editorial policy

A festival date is published only when it can be traced to a real published source, and a date labelled confirmed is one that has been cross-checked against at least two independent sources. Sources we treat as authoritative include state government holiday notifications, published panchangs, temple and religious organisation announcements, and established news reporting for observances without a formal calendar.

We do not treat other festival or listicle websites as sources for a date. Where a date cannot be verified to that standard, it is labelled expected or tentative and the page says why.

Every date on the site carries one of three labels, and the label is the point:

• Confirmed — cross-checked against at least two independent published sources. Regional variation, where it exists, is stated on the festival page.
• Expected — the date follows the calendar rule but has not been fully verified yet. It is very likely correct and it is not yet something we would stake the label on.
• Tentative — the underlying tithi, or a moon sighting, is not final. This applies most often to Islamic festivals, whose dates depend on observation rather than arithmetic.

A date is never upgraded to confirmed to make a page look better. Where we simply do not know, the site says we do not know — an unverified date is shown as unverified rather than omitted, because a labelled approximation is more useful to a reader planning a trip than a blank space.

This is the rule everything else depends on. We do not invent, and we do not publish a plausible-sounding guess as a fact. In practice that means:

• No invented muhurat times. A precise timing depends on coordinates and on which panchang you follow, so this site publishes the civil date with a confidence label and directs you to a location-specific panchang for minutes.
• No invented products, prices or ratings. We have no product feed, so gift guidance is about categories and never claims a specific item costs a specific amount. Where a price range appears, it is stated as a range and labelled as an estimate.
• No invented businesses. The featured business sections are built to render usefully when empty rather than being filled with fake shop names.
• No invented engagement. There are no fake view counts, no “12,000 people read this today”, and no fabricated reviews or ratings. The only counts on this site are anonymous, device-local and described as such.

There is rarely one correct way to observe an Indian festival. Where practice differs meaningfully — between states, between communities, between sampradayas — the page states the variation instead of choosing a single version and presenting it as the definitive one. A festival page that describes only one regional practice as “how it is celebrated” is wrong for most of the people reading it.

Being specific about this matters, because “AI-generated” is now used as both a boast and an accusation. Our position:

• AI tools may be used to draft and structure content, and to check consistency across a large number of pages.
• AI is never a source for a date, a ritual, a recipe, a price or any factual claim. Facts are traced to published sources, and a model’s output is not a published source.
• Any date or factual claim that came out of a model is treated as unverified until it is checked against a real source, and is labelled accordingly until then.

The practical test is this: if a page contains a claim that would embarrass the site if it were wrong, that claim should be traceable to a source a reader could check.

Corrections are expected, not exceptional. When a verified factual error is reported or found, the page is corrected and its last-updated date changes. Where a point is genuinely contested rather than simply wrong, the page is changed to describe the disagreement rather than to pick a side.

To report an error, use the contact page and include the page URL, what it says, what it should say, and a source we can check. That last part is what makes a correction fast rather than a debate.

Advertising and editorial content are kept strictly apart, and the separation is structural rather than a promise:

• Advertisers cannot buy a ranking, a recommendation, a review, a rating, or any change to a festival date or factual content.
• Every paid placement is labelled and visually distinct from editorial cards, and paid slots are capped at three per page.
• Gift guides are editorial and are never for sale. Sponsored listings never appear inside a guide or a ranking.
• Advertising is off by default. If no advertising provider is configured, the site renders with no ad markup at all.

The detail is public in the sponsored content policy and the affiliate disclosure.

Editorial content is written for this site. Where an external source informs a factual claim, the page names it in plain language so a reader can go and check. Quoting a short passage with a link is welcome; republishing the content wholesale is not. See the copyright page.