A ceremony is an event of ritual significance, performed on a special occasion. The word may be of Etruscan origin.

A ceremony may mark a rite of passage in a human life, marking the significance of, for example:

Sometimes, a ceremony may only be performed by a person with certain authority. For example, the opening of the United Kingdom Parliament is presided over by the Sovereign (Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II). A captain or a higher-ranked naval officer usually supervises the naming and launching of a warship. A wedding is performed by a priest or a Civil Celebrant, as in Australia. The President of the United States is customarily sworn in by the Chief Justice of the United States, and the British sovereign is always crowned by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Other, society-wide ceremonies may mark annual or seasonal or recurrent events such as:

Other ceremonies underscore the importance of non-regular special occasions, such as:

In some Asian cultures, ceremonies also play an important social role, for example the tea ceremony.

Katrina Kaif (born 16 July 1984) is a British Indian actress and former model who appears in Indian films, mainly in the Hindi-language film industry. She has also appeared in Telugu and Malayalam films. She was voted the sexiest Asian woman in the world by Eastern Eye in the years 2008, 2009 and 2010. Being a British citizen, she works in India on an employment visa.

Kaif made her acting debut with Kaizad Gustad's box office bomb Boom (2003). She tasted success in 2007 with Vipul Shah's Namastey London and followed with such films as Anees Bazmee's Welcome (2007), Abbas-Mustan's Race (2008) and Kabir Khan's New York (2009). She has since appeared in critically and commercially successful films like Prakash Jha's political thriller Rajneeti (2010) and Zoya Akhtar's dramedy Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara (2011).

Kaif was born in Hong Kong, to an Indian Kashmiri father, Mohammed Kaif, and an English mother, Susanna Turquotte, both of whom are British citizens. Her parents divorced when she was very young. Kaif once stated, "My dad, unfortunately, and not out of choice, has had no influence on our upbringing, on our religious or social or moral bearings." When she came to India, she changed her surname to Kaif, because it was Indian in origin. Furthermore, Ayesha Shroff has maintained that the actress' original name is Katrina Turquotte. Kaif has seven siblings; a brother and six sisters. From Hong Kong, she and her family moved to China, then to Japan. From there she went to France when she was 8, and thereafter lived for a few months at a time in Switzerland, Poland, Germany, Belgium, and other European countries. Then she moved with her family to Hawaii, and eventually to her mother's home country of England. Although it is often assumed that Kaif is from London, she lived there only for three years before finally moving to Mumbai.

Harbhajan Singh Plaha ( pronunciation (help·info), born 3 July 1980 in Jalandhar, Punjab, India), commonly known as Harbhajan Singh, is an Indian cricketer. A specialist bowler, he has the second-highest number of Test wickets by an off spinner, behind Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan. Harbhajan made his Test and One Day International (ODI) debuts in early 1998. His career was initially affected by investigations into the legality of his bowling action, as well as several disciplinary incidents. However in 2001, with leading leg spinner Anil Kumble injured, Harbhajan's career was resuscitated after Indian captain Sourav Ganguly called for his inclusion in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy team. In that series victory over Australia, Harbhajan established himself as the team's leading spinner by taking 32 wickets, becoming the first Indian bowler to take a hat trick in Test cricket.