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Indian farmer Govind Singh travelled for nearly two days by train to reach what he believes is the “land of the gods” — just one among legions of Hindu pilgrims joining the largest gathering of humanity.The millennia-old Kumbh Mela, a sacred show of religious piety and ritual bathing that opens Monday, is held at the site where the holy Ganges, Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati rivers meet.This edition of the mega fair, in the north Indian city of Prayagraj in Uttar Pradesh state, is believed to be the biggest ever.Organisers expect up to 400 million pilgrims from India and beyond over six weeks, running from January 13 to February 26.”It feels great to be in the land of the gods for the Kumbh Mela,” said the 53-year-old Singh, who came from a village in Madhya Pradesh state, a journey of more than 600 kilometres (375 miles). “I will stay as long as the gods want me to.”The riverside in Prayagraj has turned into a vast tent city.Many pilgrims are already taking dips in the chilly water, with temperatures on the banks at midday around 20 degrees Celsius (around 70 degrees Fahrenheit).A shivering Sunny Pratap Gaur’s eyes teared up and his teeth clenched in the cold as he stood by the river after a bath in the grey waters.But he said he was happy to have “beaten the crowds” with his early dip. “I took leave from the office to be here,” said Gaur, a mid-level government bureaucrat from the state capital Lucknow.- ‘Another world’ -Beyond the bathing area, scores of boats lined up, offering pilgrims a trip to the Sangam, the spot believed to be the confluence of the three rivers.Hindus believe bathing there during the Kumbh helps cleanse sins and brings salvation.The festival is rooted in Hindu mythology, a battle between deities and demons for control of a pitcher containing the nectar of immortality.”Hundreds of boatmen from all over the state have come with their boats to serve the pilgrims,” said Ramheet Nishad, one of them.Sprawling fields of tents — divided into sectors, complete with restaurants, shops and makeshift toilets — flank the river.Wealthier pilgrims camp in luxurious tents; more humble ones huddle under tarpaulin sheets.Saffron-robed monks and the naked ash-smeared ascetics roam the crowds, offering blessings to devotees.They will lead the dawn charge into the river waters on the most auspicious bathing dates.The massive congregation is also an occasion for Uttar Pradesh’s local Hindu nationalist government to burnish its credentials. Billboard after billboard lists the government’s achievements — some with QR codes linked to a specially designed website advertising the state’s public schemes.Indian police said they were “conducting relentless day-and-night patrols to ensure top-notch security” for the event.But for some visitors, the fair transcends politics and religion –- a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”It is about the feel,” said 26-year-old Rohit Singh. “The people, the river, it is another world.”

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai on Saturday joined a global summit on the education of Muslim girls that was snubbed by Afghanistan’s Taliban government.The two-day conference hosted by Pakistan has brought together education officials from dozens of Muslim-majority countries, but without Afghanistan — the only country in the world where girls are banned from school.”The Muslim world including Pakistan faces significant challenges in ensuring equitable access to education for girls,” Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said at the opening of the summit in the capital Islamabad. “Denying education to girls is tantamount to denying their voice and their choice, while depriving them of their right to a bright future.”Pakistan Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui told AFP that Islamabad had extended an invitation to Kabul, “but no one from the Afghan government was at the conference”.Muhammad al-Issa, a Saudi cleric and secretary general of the Muslim World League — which has backed the summit — said religion was no grounds for blocking girls from school.”The entire Muslim world has agreed that girls’ education is important, and those who say that girls’ education is un-Islamic are wrong,” he said. Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), urged leaders of Islamic countries to support Afghan girls.”I really call on all these ministers … who came from all over the world, to offer scholarships, to have online education, to have all sorts of education for them. This is the task of the day,” she told a panel. Yousafzai, who was shot by Pakistan Taliban militants in 2012 when she was a schoolgirl, is due to address the conference on Sunday.”I’m truly honoured, overwhelmed and happy to be back in Pakistan,” she told AFP as she arrived at the conference with her parents. She earlier posted on social media that she would speak about “why leaders must hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes against Afghan women & girls”.Since returning to power in 2021, the Afghan Taliban government has imposed an austere version of Islamic law that the United Nations has called “gender apartheid”. Yousafzai’s father Ziauddin Yousafzai, a teacher who pushed against cultural norms for his daughter to go to school in Pakistan, told AFP he had not seen “any serious step or serious action from the Muslim world” on the cause of girls’ education in Afghanistan. – ‘At last’ -Pakistan is facing its own severe education crisis, with more than 26 million children out of school, according to government figures, one of the highest numbers in the world. Sharif said “inadequate infrastructure, safety concerns, as well as deeply entrenched societal norms” were barriers to girls’ education. Zahra Tariq, a 23-year-old studying clinical psychology who attended the opening of the summit, told AFP: “At last we have a good initiative on Muslim girls’ education.” But, Tariq added, “Those in rural areas are still facing problems. In some cases their families are the first barrier.”Yousafzai became a household name after she was attacked by Pakistan Taliban militants on a school bus in the remote Swat valley in 2012.Militancy was widespread in the region at the time as the war between the Afghan Taliban and NATO forces raged across the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistan and Afghan Taliban are separate groups but share close links and similar ideologies, including a strong disbelief in educating girls.Yousafzai was evacuated to the United Kingdom after her attack and went on to become a global advocate for girls’ education and, at the age of 17, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize winner.