Kumbh Death Toll Questioned; Secret Sauce Behind China Innovations; Can Trump, Modi Clinch Trade Deal? Indian Media Misreads Canadian Report on Nijjar

A newsletter from The Wire | Founded by Tanweer Alam, Sidharth Bhatia, Pratik Kanjilal, Seema Chishti, Sushant Singh, MK Venu, and Siddharth Varadarajan | Contributing writer: Kalrav Joshi, with additional inputs by Anirudh SK

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Over to Siddharth Varadarajan for today’s Cable

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Snapshot of the day

January 30, 2025

Siddharth Varadarajan

Some people who were at the Kumbh Mela early yesterday said that moments before the crowd crush, devotees had requested the police to dismantle some barricades in order to allow the large crowd to spread out, but that their pleas were in vain, report Saurabh Sharma and Shivam Patel. They quote a devotee as saying:

“We couldn't breathe … Then suddenly my mother fainted, and some other elderly people also fainted, which created a commotion. We fell down and many people stepped over us.”

They also cite police as saying that the crowd was four times larger than what was expected, that the path to the main bathing area at the Mela is only 50 metres wide and barricaded on either side, and that officials are now looking to make changes to how the festival is managed.

Meanwhile, at least one media report has pegged the actual death toll at 58,