{"id":15201,"date":"2016-10-10T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2016\/10\/10\/us-postal-service-stamp-for-festival-of-diwali\/"},"modified":"2016-10-10T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2016-10-10T12:00:00","slug":"us-postal-service-stamp-for-festival-of-diwali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/2016\/10\/10\/us-postal-service-stamp-for-festival-of-diwali\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Postal Service Stamp for Festival of Diwali"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/about.usps.com\/news\/national-releases\/2016\/pr16_066.htm\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n<p>NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, October 5, 2016 (USPS): The U.S. Postal Service commemorated the joyous Hindu festival of Diwali by dedicating the Diwali Forever stamp today. The first-day-of-issue dedication ceremony took place at the Consulate General of India in New York City. The public is asked to share the news using the hashtag #DiwaliStamp.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The Postal Service is honored to issue this Forever stamp that celebrates the Festival of Diwali,&#8221; said U.S. Postal Service Vice President of Mail Entry and Payment Technology Pritha Mehra. &#8220;We hope these stamps will light up millions of cards and letters as they make their journey through the mailstream.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The stamp design is a photograph featuring a traditional diya oil lamp beautifully lit, sitting on a sparkling gold background. Diya lamps are usually made from clay with cotton wicks dipped in clarified butter known as &#8220;ghee&#8221; or in vegetable oils. Also known as Deepavali, Diwali celebrates the triumph of good over evil. Spanning five days each autumn, Diwali is considered by some to be the start of the new year. Diwali is a shortened version of the Sanskrit word Deepavali, which roughly translates as &#8220;a necklace of lights.&#8221; During Diwali, the flickering oil-wick diyas sprinkle the homes of observers around the world.<\/p>\n<p>Customers have 60 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at local Post Offices, at The Postal Store website at usps.com\/shop or by calling 800-782-6724.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK, October 5, 2016 (USPS): The U.S. Postal Service commemorated the joyous Hindu festival of,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15201\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hinduismtoday.com\/hpi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}