<P> The "Common / Current Era" ("CE") terminology is often preferred by those who desire a term that does not explicitly make religious references . For example, Cunningham and Starr (1998) write that "B.C.E. / C.E....do not presuppose faith in Christ and hence are more appropriate for interfaith dialog than the conventional B.C. / A.D." Upon its foundation, the Republic of China adopted the Minguo Era, but used the Western calendar for international purposes . The translated term was 西元 ("xī yuán", "Western Era"). Later, in 1949, the People's Republic of China adopted 公元 (gōngyuán, "Common Era") for all purposes domestic and foreign . </P> <P> In the AD year numbering system, whether applied to the Julian or Gregorian calendars, AD 1 is preceded by 1 BC . There is no year "0" between them, so a new century begins in a year which has "01" as the final digits (e.g., 1801, 1901, 2001). New millennia likewise are considered to have begun in 1001 and 2001 . This is at odds with the much more common conception that centuries and millennia begin when the trailing digits are zeroes (1800, 1900, 2000, etc .); for example, the worldwide celebration of the new millennium took place on New Year's Eve 1999, when the year number ticked over to 2000 . </P> <P> For computational reasons, astronomical year numbering and the ISO 8601 standard designate years so that AD 1 = year 1, 1 BC = year 0, 2 BC = year − 1, etc . In common usage, ancient dates are expressed in the Julian calendar, but ISO 8601 uses the Gregorian calendar and astronomers may use a variety of time scales depending on the application . Thus dates using the year 0 or negative years may require further investigation before being converted to BC or AD . </P>

What is bc and ad in history in hindi