AI-Powered Safety Measures Revolutionize India's Maha Kumbh Festival

A tech-savvy Maha Kumbh: India aims for a safer religious festival

The Maha Kumbh Mela 2025 in Prayagraj is leveraging advanced AI and facial recognition technology to efficiently manage the world's largest human gathering. With over 2,760 CCTV cameras and software monitoring crowds, authorities can quickly find missing individuals and prevent stampedes. This 'Digital Maha Kumbh' also employs underwater drones and multilingual chatbots for enhanced safety and assistance. Inspired by stories of families separated among the millions celebrating the weeks-long Maha Kumbh Mela, old Bollywood films often featured plots in which siblings got lost at the Hindu festival and were only reunited decades later. But as Sarita Singh discovered at this year's Maha Kumbh, or 'Great Pitcher Festival', things have changed. When she was separated from her son and mother-in-law, authorities turned to state of the art facial recognition technology to trace them. Police ran her son's photograph through their software and one of the 2,760 CCTV cameras covering the festival area in the holy city of Prayagraj in northern India found him standing near a tea shop with his grandmother and reunited the family in a couple of hours. The 2025 festival has been branded the 'Digital Maha Kumbh' by the Indian government, and Sarita's story is one of many that highlight how technology is helping the authorities better manage what is the world's largest gathering of humanity. The six-week event began last week and more than 400 million visitors are expected to join the festivities and take a dip in the confluence of holy rivers at Prayagraj. Devout Hindus believe this confers them salvation from the cycle of birth and death, as well as absolution from their sins. Managing the crowds is a challenge because the festival site is spread across 4,000 hectares (9,900 acres), equivalent to 7,500 football fields. Nearly 93 million people visited the Kumbh in its first nine days until Tuesday, according to organisers. Police officers responsible for crowd management said they were using AI-based software to count the number of people and prevent stampedes that have marred previous festivals, including the last event in 2013. "The crowd is calculated using different methods, aided by AI, which plays a crucial role like telling us when the crowd surges," said Amit Kumar, a senior police officer. The computer software running the cameras also alerts authorities when it detects a surge in any one section of the festival city, a fire, or if people cross barricades they are not supposed to. The alerts are relayed to personnel on the ground to take corrective action. "With these markers we are monitoring the crowd round the clock with the help of over 500 people at the control centre," said local police chief Rajesh Dwivedi. As for finding lost visitors, the technology works only if the missing person has been captured on the crowd monitoring cameras, Kumar added. Elsewhere, underwater drones operating at a depth of up to 100 metres (328.08 ft) send real-time alerts if there is an accident or a visitor slips and goes under while taking a dip. Multilingual chatbots on the Kumbh app also provide guidance to visitors from across India who may not be familiar with the local language. "The era in which Maha Kumbh 2025 is being organised is far ahead in terms of technology," Prime Minister Narendra Modi said during a visit to Prayagraj last month. "I hope more and more people are united through this union of data and technology."

Maha Kumbh 2025: India uses AI to stop stampedes at world's biggest gathering

Organisers of the Kumbh Mela are using AI and installing 300 cameras, including drones, to manage crowds and prevent stampedes at the religious festival. With an expected turnout of up to 400 million pilgrims, the technology aims to ensure safety by monitoring crowd density and alerting authorities about potential dangers.Keen to improve India's abysmal crowd management record at large-scale religious events, organisers of the world's largest human gathering, Maha Kumbh 2025, are using artificial intelligence to try to prevent stampedes. Organisers 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. "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. Not far from the spiritual centre 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. 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. Organisers 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." Organisers 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 organising 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.

India uses AI to stop stampedes at world's biggest gathering

Prayagraj (India) (AFP) - Keen to improve India's abysmal crowd management record at large-scale religious events, organisers of the world's largest human gathering are using artificial intelligence to try to prevent stampedes. Organisers 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. "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. Not far from the spiritual centre 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. The system sounds the alarm if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat. 'Makes us feel safe' The Kumbh Mela is rooted in Hindu mythology, a battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality. Organisers 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." Organisers 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 organising 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.

India uses AI to stop stampedes at world's biggest gathering

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. "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. 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-paneled 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. The system sounds the alarm if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat. 'Makes us feel safe' 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." 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.

India uses AI to stop stampedes at world's biggest gathering

PRAYAGRAJ, India (AFP) - Keen to improve India's abysmal crowd management record at large-scale religious events, organisers of the world's largest human gathering are using artificial intelligence to try to prevent stampedes. Organisers 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. "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. Not far from the spiritual centre 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. 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. Organisers 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." Organisers 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 organising 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.

India uses AI to stop stampedes at world's biggest gathering - VnExpress International

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. "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. 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. The system sounds the alarm if sections of the crowd get so concentrated that they pose a safety threat. 'Makes us feel safe' 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." 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.