LUCKNOW: More than 10 million devout Hindus seeking absolution from their sins took a dip in holy waters in northern India during a span of four hours on Wednesday, authorities said, as they braced for millions more to swarm the site of the Kumbh Mela.
Authorities stepped up the numbers of police officers and put air ambulances on standby in the city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state on one of the holiest days of the Hindu festival, considered the world’s largest gathering of humanity.
“There are more people in this city in one day than the population of many countries, and the numbers are swelling by the minute,” Prashant Kumar, the state’s chief of police, said.
The numbers arriving had pushed infrastructure arrangements to the brink, making delays and traffic jams inevitable, he added. Media said vehicles were backed up for hundreds of kilometers from the edges of the city.
More than 10 million people had bathed by 8 a.m., authorities said, with more expected.
The full moon on Wednesday, known as Magh Poornima, makes it one of the holiest days in the six-week-long festival, held at the confluence of India’s three holiest rivers.
Maintaining safety can prove a challenge at the festival, despite stringent precautions.
More than 30 people were killed in a stampede on Jan. 29, officials said, as over 76 million flocked to the river for a ‘royal dip’, but did not deter a stream of notables, from India’s president to ministers, film stars and the wealthy.
Hindus believe that a plunge in the waters where the Ganga, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati meet will absolve them of sin but they consider this year’s event even more significant as having the power to free them of the cycle of rebirth.
Ten million Indians take holy dip on key day of Kumbh Mela festival
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Ten million Indians take holy dip on key day of Kumbh Mela festival
- Authorities stepped up the numbers of police officers and put air ambulances on standby in the city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state
- The full moon on Wednesday, known as Magh Poornima, makes it one of the holiest days in the six-week-long festival
India plans AI ‘data city’ on staggering scale
- ‘The data city is going to come in one ecosystem ... with a 100 kilometer radius’
NEW DELHI: As India races to narrow the artificial intelligence gap with the United States and China, it is planning a vast new “data city” to power digital growth on a staggering scale, the man spearheading the project says.
“The AI revolution is here, no second thoughts about it,” said Nara Lokesh, information technology minister for Andhra Pradesh state, which is positioning the city of Visakhapatnam as a cornerstone of India’s AI push.
“And as a nation ... we have taken a stand that we’ve got to embrace it,” he said ahead of an international AI summit next week in New Delhi.
Lokesh boasts the state has secured investment agreements of $175 billion involving 760 projects, including a $15 billion investment by Google for its largest AI infrastructure hub outside the United States.
And a joint venture between India’s Reliance Industries, Canada’s Brookfield and US firm Digital Realty is investing $11 billion to develop an AI data center in the same city.
Visakhapatnam — home to around two million people and popularly known as “Vizag” — is better known for its cricket ground that hosts international matches than cutting-edge technology.
But the southeastern port city is now being pitched as a landing point for submarine internet cables linking India to Singapore.
“The data city is going to come in one ecosystem ... with a 100 kilometer radius,” Lokesh said. For comparison, Taiwan is roughly 100 kilometers wide.
Lokesh said the plan goes far beyond data connectivity, adding that his state had “received close to 25 percent of all foreign direct investments” to India in 2025.
“It’s not just about the data centers,” he explained while outlining a sweeping vision of change, with Andhra Pradesh offering land at one US cent per acre for major investors.
