Half-day holiday in Odisha schools, colleges tomorrow for Hockey World Cup opening ceremony

The Odisha government has announced the closure of all government and private educational institutions in the State after 1 pm tomorrow (Wednesday) in view of the opening ceremony of the FIH Men's Hockey World Cup 2023.

On the top of it, the Cuttack district administration has also declared half-day holiday for government offices and government institutions apart from closure of schools, colleges and Universities after 1:30 pm on Wednesday. 

The grand opening ceremony of the 15th edition of the Hockey World Cup will be held at the iconic Barabati Stadium in the Millennium City. 

Collector Bhabani Shankar Chayani made the announcement about the closure of all government and private educational institutions after 1:30 pm tomorrow.

The Hockey World Cup is slated to begin on January 13 and will be played at Kalinga Stadium in Bhubaneswar and Birsa Munda Stadium in Rourkela. The tournament will continue till January 29, 2023.

The Hockey World Cup opening ceremony will be a star-studded celebrations with action-packed performances, songs and dances.

There will be live performances by Bollywood stars Ranveer Singh and Disha Patani along with BLACKSWAN, the famous K-Pop band featuring Odisha’s Shreya Lenka. 

Among others, Pritam, the writer and composer of the Hockey World Cup 2023 song, will take the stage and enthrall everyone along with vocalists like Benny Dayal, Neeti Mohan, Lisa Mishra, Amit Mishra, Antara Mitra, Sreerama Chandra, Nakash Aziz and Shalmali Kholgade and Namita Meleka from Odisha.