Since 2002 the Wellington City Council has supported celebrations for the festival of Diwali, the start of the Hindu new year. Here Governor-General Sir Anand Satyanand (who is a Catholic) opens the 2010 festival by lighting a diya (earthenware oil lamp) at the altar of the elephant-headed god Ganesh. The frequency and prominence of events such as Diwali are a sign of New Zealand's increasingly multicultural society. However, this multiculturalism exists alongside – and is sometimes combined with – a developing biculturalism.
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