World
India kicks off a massive Hindu festival touted as the world's largest religious gathering
PRAYAGRAJ, India (AP) — Millions of Hindu devotees, mystics and holy men and women from all across India flocked to the northern city of Prayagraj on Monday to kickstart the Maha Kumbh festival, which is being touted as the world’s largest religious gathering.
Over about the next six weeks, Hindu pilgrims with gather at the confluence of three sacred rivers — the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati — where they will take part in elaborate rituals, hoping to begin a journey to achieve Hindu philosophy’s ultimate goal: the release from the cycle of rebirth.
Here’s what to know about the festival:
A religious gathering at the confluence of three sacred rivers
Hindus venerate rivers, and none more so than the Ganges and the Yamuna. The faithful believe that a dip in their waters will cleanse them of their past sins and end their process of reincarnation, particularly on auspicious days. The most propitious of these days occur in cycles of 12 years during a festival called the Maha Kumbh Mela, or pitcher festival.
The festival is a series of ritual baths by Hindu sadhus, or holy men, and other pilgrims at the confluence of three sacred rivers that dates to at least medieval times. Hindus believe that the mythical Saraswati river once flowed from the Himalayas through Prayagraj, meeting there with the Ganges and the Yamuna.
Bathing takes place every day, but on the most auspicious dates, naked, ash-smeared monks charge toward the holy rivers at dawn. Many pilgrims stay for the entire festival, observing austerity, giving alms and bathing at sunrise every day.
“We feel peaceful here and attain salvation from the cycles of life and death,” said Bhagwat Prasad Tiwari, a pilgrim.
The festival has its roots in a Hindu tradition that says the god Vishnu wrested a golden pitcher containing the nectar of immortality from demons. Hindus believe that a few drops fell in the cities of Prayagraj, Nasik, Ujjain and Haridwar — the four places where the Kumbh festival has been held for centuries.
The Kumbh rotates among these four pilgrimage sites about every three years on a date prescribed by astrology. This year’s festival is the biggest and grandest of them all. A smaller version of the festival, called Ardh Kumbh, or Half Kumbh, was organized in 2019, when 240 million visitors were recorded, with about 50 million taking a ritual bath on the busiest day.
Maha Kumb is the world’s largest such gathering
At least 400 million people — more than the population of the United States — are expected in Prayagraj over the next 45 days, according to officials. That is around 200 times the 2 million pilgrims that arrived in the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage last year.
The festival is a big test for Indian authorities to showcase the Hindu religion, tourism and crowd management.
A vast ground along the banks of the rivers has been converted into a sprawling tent city equipped with more 3,000 kitchens and 150,000 restrooms. Divided into 25 sections and spreading over 40 square kilometers (15 square miles), the tent city also has housing, roads, electricity and water, communication towers and 11 hospitals. Murals depicting stories from Hindu scriptures are painted on the city walls.
Indian Railways has also introduced more than 90 special trains that will make nearly 3,300 trips during the festival to transport devotees, beside regular trains.
About 50,000 security personnel — a 50% increase from 2019 — are also stationed in the city to maintain law and order and crowd management. More than 2,500 cameras, some powered by AI, will send crowd movement and density information to four central control rooms, where officials can quickly deploy personnel to avoid stampedes.
The festival will boost Modi’s support base
India’s past leaders have capitalized on the festival to strengthen their relationship with the country’s Hindus, who make up nearly 80% of India’s more than 1.4 billion people. But under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the festival has become an integral part of its advocacy of Hindu nationalism. For Modi and his party, Indian civilization is inseparable from Hinduism, although critics say the party’s philosophy is rooted in Hindu supremacy.
The Uttar Pradesh state, headed by Adityanath — a powerful Hindu monk and a popular hard-line Hindu politician in Modi’s party — has allocated more than $765 million for this year’s event. It has also used the festival to boost his and the prime minister’s image, with giant billboards and posters all over the city showing them both, alongside slogans touting their government welfare policies.
The festival is expected to boost the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party’s past record of promoting Hindu cultural symbols for its support base. But recent Kumbh gatherings have also been caught in controversies.
Modi’s government changed the city’s Mughal-era name from Allahabad to Prayagraj as part of its Muslim-to-Hindu name-changing effort nationwide ahead of the 2019 festival and the national election that his party won. In 2021, his government refused to call off the festival in Haridwar despite a surge in coronavirus cases, fearing a backlash from religious leaders in the Hindu-majority country.
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Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Shops and schools shut in northern Israel as residents protested a 10-day ceasefire with Lebanon that took effect on April 16, saying “nothing was achieved”. Israeli officials say operations may continue, with forces still deployed inside southern Lebanon.
Published On 19 Apr 2026
World
Pope Leo says remarks about world being ‘ravaged by a handful of tyrants’ were not aimed at Trump: report
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Pope Leo XIV said Saturday that remarks he made this week in which he said the “world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants” were not directed at President Donald Trump, a report said.
The pope, speaking onboard a flight to Angola during his 10-day tour of Africa, said reporting about his comments “has not been accurate in all its aspects” and his speech “was prepared two weeks ago, well before the president ever commented on myself and on the message of peace that I am promoting,” according to Reuters.
The news outlet cited the pope as saying his comments were not aimed at Trump.
“As it happens, it was looked at as if I was trying to debate the president, which is not in my interest at all,” the pope reportedly said.
’60 MINUTES’ ACCUSED OF USING LEFT-LEANING CARDINALS TO BAIT TRUMP INTO FEUD WITH VATICAN
Pope Leo XIV answers journalists’ questions during his flight from Yaoundé, Cameroon, to Luanda, Angola, Saturday, April 18, 2026. (Luca Zennaro/Pool Photo via AP)
Vice President JD Vance later took to X to thank the pope for clearing the record.
“While the media narrative constantly gins up conflict — and yes, real disagreements have happened and will happen — the reality is often much more complicated,” Vance wrote. “Pope Leo preaches the gospel, as he should, and that will inevitably mean he offers his opinions on the moral issues of the day.
“The President — and the entire administration — work to apply those moral principles in a messy world,” he continued. “He will be in our prayers, and I hope that we’ll be in his.”
The vice president’s comments came days after he told Fox News’ Bret Baier on “Special Report” that it would be best for the Vatican to “stick to matters of morality.”
“Let the President of the United States stick to dictating American public policy,” Vance said Tuesday.
Trump last Sunday accused Pope Leo XIV of being “terrible” on foreign policy after the pontiff criticized the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
“He talks about ‘fear’ of the Trump Administration, but doesn’t mention the FEAR that the Catholic Church, and all other Christian Organizations, had during COVID when they were arresting priests, ministers, and everybody else, for holding Church Services, even when going outside, and being ten and even twenty feet apart,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
“I don’t want a Pope who thinks it’s OK for Iran to have a Nuclear Weapon.”
POPE LEO SLAMS THOSE WHO ‘MANIPULATE RELIGION’ FOR MILITARY OR POLITICAL GAIN, TRUMP RESPONDS
Pope Leo XIV and President Donald Trump (Simone Risoluti/Vatican Media via Vatican Pool/Getty Images; Salwan Georges/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
During a speech in Cameroon on Thursday, the pope said, “We must make a decisive change of course — a true conversion — that will lead us in the opposite direction, onto a sustainable path rich in human fraternity.
“The world is being ravaged by a handful of tyrants, yet it is held together by a multitude of supportive brothers and sisters.
Pope Leo XIV speaks as he meets with the community of Bamenda at Saint Joseph’s Cathedral in Bamenda on the fourth day of an 11-day apostolic journey to Africa April 16, 2026. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP via Getty Images)
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“Woe to those who manipulate religion and the very name of God for their own military, economic or political gain, dragging that which is sacred into darkness and filth.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the White House for comment.
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
Bulgarians headed to the polls Sunday for the eighth time in five years, with anti-corruption candidate and former president Rumen Radev’s bloc tipped to win.
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The European Union’s poorest member has been through a spate of governments since 2021, when large anti-graft rallies brought an end to the conservative government of long-time leader Boyko Borissov.
Eurostat data shows Bulgaria consistently ranks last in the EU by GDP per capita. In 2025, Bulgaria (along with Greece) was at 68% of the EU average.
Radev, who has advocated for renewing ties with Russia and opposes military aid to Ukraine, was president for nine years in the Balkan nation of 6.5 million people.
He stepped down in January to lead newly formed centre-left grouping Progressive Bulgaria, with opinion polls before Sunday’s vote suggesting the bloc could gain 35% of the vote.
The former air force general has said he wants to rid the country of its “oligarchic governance model”, and backed anti-corruption protests in late 2025 that brought down the latest conservative-backed government.
“I’m voting for change,” Decho Kostadinov, 57, told reporters after casting his ballot at a polling station in the capital, Sofia, adding corrupt politicians “should leave — they should take whatever they’ve stolen and get out of Bulgaria”.
Polls are forecasting a surge in voter participation, with more than 3.3 million Bulgarians expected to cast ballots according to the Bulgarian News Agency.
Voting will close at 1700 GMT, with exit polls expected immediately afterwards. Preliminary results are expected on Monday.
‘Preserve what we have’
Borissov’s pro-European GERB party is likely to come second, according to opinion polls, with around 20%, ahead of the liberal PP-DB.
“I’m voting to preserve what we have. We are a democratic country, we live well,” said Elena, an accountant of about 60, who did not give her full name, after casting her vote in Sofia.
Front-runner Radev has slammed the EU’s green energy policy, which he considers naive “in a world without rules”.
He also opposes any Bulgarian efforts to send arms to help Ukraine fight back Russia’s 2022 invasion, though he has said he would not use his country’s veto to block Brussels’ decisions.
Pushing for renewed ties with Russia, Radev denounced a 10-year defence agreement between Bulgaria and Ukraine signed last month – drawing fresh accusations from opponents of being too soft on Moscow.
The ex-president also stoked outrage online for screening images at his final campaign rally of his meetings with world leaders including Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
“We need to close ranks,” he told around 10,000 cheering supporters at the rally, presenting his party as a non-corrupt “alternative to the perverse cartel of old-style parties”.
Borissov, who headed the country virtually uninterrupted for close to a decade, has dismissed suggestions that Radev brings something “new”.
At a rally of his party earlier this week, he insisted GERB had “fulfilled the dreams of the 1990s” with such achievements as the country joining the eurozone this year.
‘No one to vote for’
Radev is aiming for an absolute majority in the 240-seat parliament.
A lack of trust in politics has affected voter turnout, which slumped to 39% in the last election in 2024.
But with Radev rallying voters, high turnout is expected this time, according to analyst Boryana Dimitrova from the Alpha Research polling institute.
Miglena Boyadjieva, a taxi driver of about 55, said she always votes, but the “problem is that there is no one to vote for”.
“You vote for one person and get others. The system has to change,” she told reporters.
Political parties have called on Bulgarians to show up for the polls, also to curb the impact of vote buying.
In recent weeks, police have seized more than one million euros in raids against vote buying in stepped-up operations.
They have also detained hundreds of people, including local councillors and mayors.
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