 Qatar recently hosted a special edition of its flagship Monday Bites series, bringing together business leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, and emerging talent to celebrate leadership, knowledge-sharing, artificial intelligence (AI), and growing India–Qatar ties.</p><p>The event, attended by Indian ambassador Vipul, observed a minute of silence in memory of those who lost their lives in the recent Ras Laffan incident. The gathering paid tribute to the deceased and expressed its heartfelt condolences to their families, colleagues, and loved ones.</p><p>IBPC Qatar president Thaha Muhammed Abdul Kareem highlighted the importance of continuous learning, leadership development, innovation, and community engagement in an increasingly dynamic global environment. </p><p>As one of IBPC Qatar%27s signature initiatives, Monday Bites has established itself as a premier platform for leadership dialogue, professional development, and knowledge exchange. By bringing together business leaders, policymakers, entrepreneurs, industry experts, and professionals, the platform fosters meaningful conversations on emerging trends, opportunities, and challenges shaping the future of business and society.</p><p>Addressing the gathering, the ambassador reflected on the remarkable progress achieved in India–Qatar relations over the past three years and shared his perspectives on the expanding opportunities for collaboration between the two countries. </p><p>He highlighted the growing momentum across trade, investment, energy, technology, innovation, education, and people-to-people engagement, while emphasising the importance of continued cooperation in strengthening the strategic partnership between India and Qatar.</p><p>A major highlight of the event was the Monday Bites Signature Session titled ‘Build the BAT. Master the BAAP. Be the BATMAN. Attract What Others Chase’, delivered by Kareem.The session challenged conventional thinking around success and competition, encouraging participants to focus on building distinctive value, strong capabilities, and sustainable competitive advantages. </p><p>The event also marked the successful completion of the inaugural IBPC AI Advantage Certification Programme with Certificates of Participation presented to the graduates.As one of the first initiatives of its kind undertaken by IBPC Qatar, the programme represents an important milestone in the organisation%27s commitment to preparing professionals and business leaders for the rapidly evolving age of AI. </p><p>The certification covered key areas including prompt engineering, AI-powered productivity, content creation, automation, strategic decision-making, and digital transformation. By focusing on practical use cases and hands-on learning, the program empowered participants to confidently embrace emerging technologies and unlock new opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and growth.</p><p>The initiative reflects IBPC Qatar%27s broader vision of fostering future-ready leadership and ensuring that its members remain competitive, adaptable, and well-positioned to succeed in an increasingly technology-driven global economy.</p><p>As India and Qatar continue to deepen cooperation across trade, investment, technology, energy, innovation, and human capital development, initiatives such as Monday Bites and the IBPC AI Advantage Certification Programme reflect IBPC Qatar%27s commitment to building a future-ready professional community while strengthening the people-to-people and business connections that underpin one of the region%27s most dynamic and successful bilateral partnerships.</p>__%20%20%20%20<p>Related%20Story</p>_%20%20%20%20_%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20_%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20_%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20_%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20_%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20__%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20%20<img%20loading=?resize=150,150&ssl=1 "IBPC Doha Information holds Monday Bites consultation with Indian envoy")
Whether or not towns or villages, many communities throughout Europe spend the day and night time of June 24 celebrating Midsummer. Congregating round bonfires, or once in a while maypoles, wearing handwoven wreaths of wildflowers or oak leaves, they’ll sing, leap, dance, devour, drink, catch up and have a good time the coming of the longest day of the yr. As a pupil of folklore, I’ve been to Midsummer celebrations in Finland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Estonia and Lithuania, and I’m perpetually in awe of folks’s fervent dedication to the vacation and obvious delight in it.
From the Mediterranean to Scandinavia and from France to Poland and past, Midsummer is going via many names, together with the Italian “Festa di San Giovanni Battista” and the Swedish “Midsommar.” It’s “Leedopäev” in Estonia, “Juhannus” in Finland, and “Mihcamárat” for the Sami, the Indigenous folks of Scandinavia. Celebrations mark the summer time solstice, which takes position within the Northern Hemisphere round June 21.
Other people acquire for the normal Midsummer celebrations in Gagnef, Sweden, on June 20, 2025.
Ulf Palm/TT Information Company/AFP by the use of Getty Photographs
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Every morning from the time of the wintry weather solstice to the summer time solstice, the solar rises a bit of farther to the north. Because the solar climbs upper within the sky, shadows develop shorter and days develop longer. On the summer time solstice, the Solar “stands still” – the that means of the Latin solstice – and starts its development again towards the south. Days shorten, shadows extend, and the chilly and dreariness of wintry weather go back.
Europeans throughout all of the continent have famous this easy and inexorable cycle for millennia. Neolithic monuments reminiscent of Eire’s Newgrange and England’s Stonehenge, either one of which date from round 5,000 years in the past, have been constructed to mark solstices.
Lighting fixtures the bonfire
From the Mediterranean to the northern peripheries of Europe, the summer time solstice has lengthy been greeted as a time for rituals to assemble good fortune, inform the long run and thrust back evil.
In Germany, northeastern France and plenty of portions of Scandinavia and the Baltic, folks nonetheless construct elaborate bonfire pyres to gentle within the night time and have a tendency lengthy into the night time. Consistent with folks trust, stepping or jumping over the flames brings love and fertility, whilst the peak of the flames predicts the approaching yr’s harvest.
Ukrainians leap over hearth all over a party of Kupala Night time, a Slavic midsummer pageant, in Warsaw, Poland, on June 21, 2025.
AP Photograph/Czarek Sokolowski
Historically, many Europeans accrued dew, herbs or leaves on Midsummer eve, which was once reputed to make sure well being, attractiveness and just right fortune. Some introduced their livestock with regards to bonfires to respire within the smoke, or scattered fields with ashes the next day to come. Even if folks lately most often regard those ideals as old fashioned reminders of the previous, incessantly they avidly take part, simply in case – tying them to forebears centuries and even millennia in the past.
Pagan, Christian and secular
Lots of the names for the vacation, such because the Danish “Sankt Hans Aften” or Icelandic “Jónsmessunótt,” are hooked up with John the Baptist, the Christian saint whose birthday is widely known June 24. The place Jesus’ beginning is honored across the time of the wintry weather solstice, the Bible describes his cousin St. John being born exactly six months previous, on the top of summer time. The passion on this connection between Jesus and John explains why the vacation takes position on June 24 – or in some international locations, at the nearest Saturday – relatively than on the true solstice.
Medieval Christian government didn’t all the time relish the “pagan” celebrations of the day and infrequently decried peasants’ dancing, making a song and different customs. All the way through the sixteenth century’s Protestant Reformation, celebrations of Catholic saints’ banquet days have been suppressed, however Midsummer lived on as an earthly vacation.
In puts the place Protestants and Catholics overlapped, such because the Netherlands, celebrating St. John’s eve was a symbol of Catholic identification. The Ceremonial dinner of St. John is widely known because the “fête nationale” of the Canadian province of Québec partly to tell apart the province from the tradition of its English Protestant neighbors.
Swedish painter Anders Zorn finished ‘Midsommardans’ in 1897.
Nationwide Museum of Sweden by the use of Wikimedia Commons
Some of the iconic photographs of Swedish celebrations of the day, Anders Zorn’s 1897 portray “Midsommardans,” or “Midsummer Dance,” displays Nineteenth-century anxiousness that loved traditions would disappear. Zorn himself paid for the erection of the maypole depicted in his portray, looking for to keep the picturesque customized within the area of rural Sweden the place he lived.
But Zorn’s fears have been unfounded. A lot has modified, however Europeans stay appreciative of the straightforward and unchanging rhythms of the flora and fauna, together with the approaching and passing of the season’s longest day.
