India uses AI to avoid stampedes at gathering of 400 million pilgrims

India uses AI to avoid stampedes at gathering of 400 million pilgrims
Police monitor the situation via screens at the Integrated Command and Control Center, set up to manage and control the crowd, during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on January 17, 2025. (AFP)
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Updated 18 January 2025
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India uses AI to avoid stampedes at gathering of 400 million pilgrims

India uses AI to avoid stampedes at gathering of 400 million pilgrims
  • Deadly crowd crushes are a notorious feature of Indian religious festivals
  • Kumbh Mela, with unfathomable throngs, has grim track record of stampedes

PRAYAGRAJ: Keen to improve India’s abysmal crowd management record at large-scale religious events, organizers of the world’s largest human gathering are using artificial intelligence to try to prevent stampedes.
Organizers predict up to 400 million pilgrims will visit the Kumbh Mela, a millennia-old sacred show of Hindu piety and ritual bathing that began Monday and runs for six weeks.
Deadly crowd crushes are a notorious feature of Indian religious festivals, and the Kumbh Mela, with its unfathomable throngs of devotees, has a grim track record of stampedes.
“We want everyone to go back home happily after having fulfilled their spiritual duties,” Amit Kumar, a senior police officer heading tech operations in the festival, told AFP.




Pilgrims arrive at Sangam, the confluence of Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers, to take part in Shahi Snan or ‘royal bath’, to mark the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj, India on January 14, 2025 (AFP/File)

“AI is helping us avoid reaching that critical mass in sensitive places.”
More than 400 people died after being trampled or drowned at the Kumbh Mela on a single day of the festival in 1954, one of the largest tolls in a crowd-related disaster globally.
Another 36 people were crushed to death in 2013, the last time the festival was staged in the northern city of Prayagraj.
But this time, authorities say the technology they have deployed will help them gather accurate estimates of crowd sizes, allowing them to be better prepared for potential trouble.
Police say they have installed around 300 cameras at the festival site and on roads leading to the sprawling encampment, mounted on poles and a fleet of overhead drones.




An engineer checks a drone equipped with artificial intelligence (AI), which enables the state police to surveil the crowd during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj, India, on January 17, 2025. (AFP)

Not far from the spiritual center of the festival at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, the network is overseen in a glass-panelled command and control room by a small army of police officers and technicians.
“We can look at the entire Kumbh Mela from here,” said Kumar. “There are camera angles where we cannot even see complete bodies and we have to count using heads or torsos.”
Kumar said the footage fed into an AI algorithm that gives its handlers an overall estimate of a crowd stretching for miles in every direction, cross-checked against data from railways and bus operators.
“We are using AI to track people flow, crowd density at various inlets, adding them up and then interpolating from there,” he added.




A state police drone operator looks at footage taken with a drone to monitor the crowd during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj, India, on January 17, 2025. (AFP)

The system sounds the alarm if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat.
The Kumbh Mela is rooted in Hindu mythology, a battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.
Organizers say the scale of this year’s festival is that of a temporary country — with numbers expected to total around the combined populations of the United States and Canada.
Some six million devotees took a dip in the river on the first morning of the festival, according to official estimates.
With a congregation that size, Kumar said that some degree of crowd crush is inevitable.
“The personal bubble of an individual is quite big in the West,” said Kumar, explaining how the critical threshold at which AI crowd control systems ring the alarm is higher than in other countries using similar crowd management systems.
“The standard there is three people per square foot,” he added. “But we can afford to go several times higher than that.”




This satellite image taken and released by Maxar Technologies on January 17, 2025, shows an overview of the Maha Kumbh Mela along the banks of Sangam, the confluence of Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers, during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj, India.

Organizers have been eager to tout the technological advancements of this year’s edition of the Kumbh Mela and their attendant benefits for pilgrims.
Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, a devout Hindu monk whose government is responsible for organizing the festival, has described it as an event “at the confluence of faith and modernity.”
“The fact that there are cameras and drones makes us feel safe,” 28-year-old automotive engineer Harshit Joshi, one of the millions of pilgrims to arrive for the start of the festival, told AFP.


Greek PM insists no danger from Santorini quake swarm

Greek PM insists no danger from Santorini quake swarm
Updated 07 February 2025
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Greek PM insists no danger from Santorini quake swarm

Greek PM insists no danger from Santorini quake swarm
  • The activity has baffled scientists, who say that the region has not experienced seismic activity on this scale since records began in 1964
  • The seismology laboratory of Athens University on Friday said over 7,700 tremors had been recorded since Jan. 26

ATHENS: Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis insisted Friday there was no “immediate danger” from an unprecedented wave of quakes on the tourist island of Santorini that has forced thousands of residents to leave.
The state was “fully deployed not because we believe... that something disastrous is going to happen, but because we must be ready for any eventuality,” Mitsotakis said during a meeting on the island with local officials.
Santorini — which is part of a spectacular volcanic caldera — and the neighboring Aegean Sea islands of Amorgos, Ios and Anafi have been hit by hundreds of tremors since the weekend.
The activity has baffled scientists, who say that the region has not experienced seismic activity on this scale since records began in 1964.
The seismology laboratory of Athens University on Friday said over 7,700 tremors had been recorded since Jan. 26.
One of the experts advising the government on the phenomenon, seismologist Costas Papazachos, told the Kathimerini daily Friday that the activity “will continue for two to three weeks” based on the latest data.
The barrage was weaker Friday, but was still punctuated by a 4.8-magnitude tremor. The strongest was a 5.2-magnitude quake on Thursday.
No injuries or damage have been reported.
Over 11,000 residents and seasonal workers have left Santorini since the weekend by sea and air, with operators adding extra flights and ferries.
Schools on more than a dozen islands in the Cyclades island group in the Aegean Sea were shut this week as a precaution, prompting many people with children to leave Santorini until the quake scare eases.
Santorini lies atop a volcano which last erupted in 1950.
Mitsotakis on Friday said that volcanic activity in the area was “not unusual” and did not entail any “immediate, particular danger.”
“We hope this sequence will dissipate without producing a major earthquake,” Mitsotakis said.
One of Greece’s top travel destinations, Santorini attracted about 3.4 million visitors in 2023. Upwards of a million of those were cruise ship passengers.


Bangladesh asks India to stop former PM Hasina from making ‘false statements’

Bangladesh asks India to stop former PM Hasina from making ‘false statements’
Updated 07 February 2025
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Bangladesh asks India to stop former PM Hasina from making ‘false statements’

Bangladesh asks India to stop former PM Hasina from making ‘false statements’
  • Hasina, who fled to India last year after losing power, accused rivals of taking over unconstitutionally
  • People targeted her late father’s residence as she spoke, making India call it an ‘act of vandalism’

DHAKA: Bangladesh has asked India to stop ousted former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina from making “false and fabricated” comments while she is in the country, its foreign ministry said.
Hasina fled to India in August following violent protests that killed more than 1,000 people.
In an online address on Wednesday, she called on her supporters to stand against the interim government in Bangladesh, accusing it of seizing power unconstitutionally.
Thousands of protesters trying to disrupt Hasina’s address had demolished and set fire to the home of Mujibur Rahman, her father and Bangladesh’s founding leader. The violence continued after Hasina spoke.
Bangladesh’s foreign ministry handed over a protest note to India’s acting high commissioner in Dhaka, conveying “deep concern, disappointment and serious reservation” over her comments, it said on its Facebook page.
“The ministry ... requested ... India to immediately take appropriate measures, in the spirit of mutual respect and understanding, to stop her from making such false, fabricated and incendiary statements,” it said.
Hasina could not be contacted for comment.
Although India did not comment on the communication from Bangladesh, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal condemned the destruction of Rahman’s home as an “act of vandalism.”
“All those who value the freedom struggle that nurtured Bangla identity and pride are aware of the importance of this residence for the national consciousness of Bangladesh,” he said.
It was in the same house that Rahman declared Bangladesh’s independence from Pakistan in 1971, and he and most of his family were assassinated within its walls in 1975.
Hasina transformed the building into a museum dedicated to her father’s legacy.
The interim government’s chief adviser, Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, appealed to people on Friday to restore law and order and ensure there were no more attacks on properties linked to Hasina’s family or politicians from her Awami League party.
“Any attacks to their properties gives them an excuse to draw international attention to themselves and dish out their fabricated stories ... Any deterioration of law and order will give a wrong message to the world,” he said.
Bangladesh has been grappling with political strife since Hasina was ousted, with the interim government struggling to maintain law and order amid continuing unrest.
India and Bangladesh, which share a 4,000 kilometer (2,500 miles) border, have longstanding cultural and business ties.
India also played a key role in the 1971 war with Pakistan that led to the creation of Bangladesh.


UN food agency WFP received dozens of US stop work orders despite emergency waiver

UN food agency WFP received dozens of US stop work orders despite emergency waiver
Updated 07 February 2025
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UN food agency WFP received dozens of US stop work orders despite emergency waiver

UN food agency WFP received dozens of US stop work orders despite emergency waiver
  • Several of the suspended grants are under the Food for Peace Title II program
  • The program, which makes up the bulk of US international food assistance, is co-administered by the US Department of Agriculture and USAID

WASHINGTON/LOS ANGELES: The UN World Food Programme (WFP) was ordered by Washington to stop work on dozens of US-funded grants, according to an email seen by Reuters, that was sent five days after Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a waiver for emergency food assistance.
The US Agency for International Development (USAID) grants, at various stages of progression, are worth tens of millions of dollars and provide food assistance in impoverished countries including Yemen, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Haiti and Mali.
The US State Department and the World Food Programme did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Several of the suspended grants are under the Food for Peace Title II program, which spends about $2 billion annually on the donation of US commodities. The program, which makes up the bulk of US international food assistance, is co-administered by the US Department of Agriculture and USAID.
Just hours after taking office on January 20, Trump ordered a 90-day foreign aid pause so contributions could be reviewed to see if they align with his “America First” foreign policy. The US is the world’s largest aid donor.
The State Department then wrote a January 24 “stop work” cable — seen by Reuters — for all existing foreign assistance and paused new aid, but said Rubio had given an exemption for emergency food assistance. He also approved a waiver on January 28 for life-saving humanitarian help, defined as core life-saving medicine, medical services, food and shelter.

’FAR REACHING CONSEQUENCES’
But on January 29, WFP — whose executive director is American Cindy McCain — received an email, seen by Reuters, from USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance listing dozens of project numbers subjected to a stop work order.
A senior WFP official in Washington responded with a list of clarifying questions, according to the email. In another note, seen by Reuters, the same official raised concerns about the pause in Title II and Commodity Credit Corporation awards.
“The pause in Title II and CCC awards has disrupted WFP’s massive food supply chain, affecting over 507,000 metric tons (MT) of food valued at more than $340 million,” the WFP official wrote.
The official noted that some of that food was currently en route by sea, more was stored in 23 countries and some was in overland transport. They added that “a substantial quantity of food is currently being loaded at ports like Houston and other locations across the US domestic supply chain.”
“The scale of this disruption underscores the far-reaching consequences of the funding pause on global food assistance efforts. WFP is in the process of analyzing the impact this has on the extremely vulnerable beneficiaries in severe humanitarian contexts that receive this lifesaving assistance,” the WFP official wrote.
The Trump administration’s effort to slash and reshape American foreign aid is crippling the intricate global system that aims to prevent and respond to famine, according to humanitarian organizations.
USAID has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally. The Trump administration plans to keep fewer than 300 USAID staff out of the agency’s thousands of staff.
Trump’s incoming UN Ambassador Elize Stefanik praised WFP as “a very successful program” when she appeared before the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee last month. She noted that WFP has “significant bipartisan support” in Congress.


Ukraine’s Western backers will meet for arms talks as doubts over US intentions grow

Ukraine’s Western backers will meet for arms talks as doubts over US intentions grow
Updated 07 February 2025
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Ukraine’s Western backers will meet for arms talks as doubts over US intentions grow

Ukraine’s Western backers will meet for arms talks as doubts over US intentions grow
  • President Donald Trump has expressed skepticism for backing Ukraine
  • The UK is convening the 26th meeting of the contact group on Wednesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels

BRUSSELS: The main international forum for drumming up weapons and ammunition for Ukraine will for the first time meet under the auspices of a country other than the US as uncertainty surrounds the future of Washington’s support for arming the war-torn country.
The Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a consortium of about 50 partner nations, was brought together by former US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to coordinate weapons support in the months after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
President Donald Trump has expressed skepticism for backing Ukraine, criticizing its President Volodymyr Zelensky and saying last month that his administration had already held ” very serious” discussions with Russia about ending the conflict.
The UK is convening the 26th meeting of the contact group on Wednesday at NATO headquarters in Brussels.
The meeting is aimed at discussing “priorities for Ukraine as the international community continues to work together to support Ukraine in its fight against (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s illegal invasion,” the British Ministry of Defense said in a statement released on Thursday.
It’s the first time that a country other than the US has convened the forum, although Austin’s successor, Pete Hegseth, is scheduled to take part. It was not immediately clear whether the UK convened the meeting on its own initiative or whether Washington requested it.
A senior US official said, “We appreciate the UK’s leadership in convening the 50-plus countries who participate in this forum. Ally and partner burden-sharing remains critical to helping achieve peace in Ukraine.”
The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The US is by far the largest single foreign contributor of military aid to Ukraine, providing about 30 percent of Ukraine’s weaponry, as much as the 27 members of the European Union put together.
Kathleen Burk, emeritus professor of history at University College London, told The Associated Press that if the US has asked Britain to chair the meeting of Ukraine’s Western backers, it “seems to tell me that disengagement has already begun.”
Zelensky attended the last meeting in January, as the Biden administration rushed to provide his country with as much military support as it could, including a new $500 million package of weapons and relaxing restrictions on missile strikes into Russia.
The aim was to put Ukraine in the strongest position possible for any future negotiations to end the war.
In June last year, NATO defense ministers approved a permanent system to provide reliable long-term security aid and military training for Ukraine after delays in Western deliveries of funds, arms and ammunition helped invading Russian forces to seize the initiative on the battlefield.
The NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine (NSATU), which began work in December, had been described as a way to “Trump-proof” NATO backing for Ukraine, a reference to concern that Trump might withdraw US support for Kyiv.
NSATU, which is headquartered at a US military base in Wiesbaden, Germany, was publicly portrayed by NATO officials as a system that would complement rather than replace the contact group.


London’s Grenfell Tower to be taken down after deadly 2017 fire

London’s Grenfell Tower to be taken down after deadly 2017 fire
Updated 07 February 2025
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London’s Grenfell Tower to be taken down after deadly 2017 fire

London’s Grenfell Tower to be taken down after deadly 2017 fire
  • The move has angered some survivors and families of those killed in the massive inferno
  • “Grenfell Tower will be carefully taken down to the ground,” the government said

LONDON: London’s Grenfell Tower — where 72 people died in 2017 in Britain’s worst residential fire since World War II — is to be demolished, the UK government confirmed on Friday.
The move, which is expected to take two years, has angered some survivors and families of those killed in the massive inferno, which destroyed the 24-story block in the west of Britain’s capital.
“Grenfell Tower will be carefully taken down to the ground,” the government said in a statement, confirming what victims’ groups said Thursday they had been told.
The work will start after the eighth anniversary of the blaze on June 14 and will be done carefully to ensure that materials can be included in any future memorial, the statement said.
The government said safety was the primary reason for the demolition.
“It remains stable because of the measures put in place to protect it, but even with installation of additional props, the condition of the building will continue to worsen over time,” the statement said.
“Engineers also advise it is not practicable to retain many of the floors of the building in place as part of a memorial that must last in perpetuity.”
The fire started in a faulty freezer, spreading rapidly due to highly combustible cladding fixed to the building’s exterior.
An public inquiry last year found the 72 deaths were “all avoidable” and blamed the “systematic dishonesty” of building firms.
It also revealed decades-long government and regulatory failures.
Since the inquiry and report, victims’ groups have criticized the government for failing to implement fire safety recommendations swiftly enough, including removing similar cladding from other buildings.
Families have also condemned the delay in bringing criminal charges against those blamed for the disaster in the inquiry.
The decision to demolish the building divided victim groups.
Grenfell United, which represents some of the survivors and families, said on Thursday the decision as “disgraceful” and that victims were ignored by a short consultation.
However, Grenfell Next of Kin said it was a “sensitive decision” which “came after a thorough engagement process” and was informed by “safety concerns” surrounding the structural integrity of the scaffolded remains of the building.
The government insisted that deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, who also holds the housing brief, has offered the community several discussions online and in-person.
“It is clear from conversations it remains a sacred site. It is also clear that there is not a consensus about what should happen to it,” the government said in its statement.
“Being able to see the tower every day helps some people continue to feel close to those they lost. For others it is a painful reminder of what happened and is having a daily impact on some members of the community.”