The Mela, which runs until March 4, was recognised as an intangible cultural heritage by UNESCO in 2017.The historic city was even renamed Prayagraj in October by the states government, stripping its centuries-old Muslim moniker and replacing it with an ancient Hindu title."More people are drawn to the Kumbh now," Ganeshanand Bharamachari, a 78-year-old pilgrim from nearby Varanasi and a Kumbh veteran, told AFP.
A tent city with restaurants, roads and marketplaces has sprung up along the river, with pilgrims camped out across a sprawling 45-square kilometre zone specially earmarked for the Kumbh. This is the most auspicious event for any human being," said Chandhans Pandey, a 60-year-old devotee."People, mostly from cities, are becoming increasingly religious because the western life they were living has not led them anywhere.Naked, dread-locked holy men smeared in ash and sadhus clad in saffron robes wander the crowds, offering blessings to pilgrims who have travelled from every corner of India for the ritual dip."The UP state government has heavily promoted this years Kumbh, which comes as ahead of general elections in April and May.
The confluence of the three -- known as Sangam -- is considered especially holy and Hindus believe bathing there during the Kumbh helps cleanse sins and brings salvation.Organisers are expecting the enormous spiritual festival in Allahabad to attract more than 100 million devotees over the next 48 days, with seas of pilgrims camped by the riverside."This pilgrimage gives me peace of mind and an opportunity to reflect on my life," said Sangeeta Gangotri, a pilgrim who travelled 650 China Portable Hammock for salekilometres from Nagpur in Maharashtra to Allahabad."All the Gods descend on this sacred place during this period."I have been planning to attend (for) many years.Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Allahabad in December to inaugurate a high-tech command centre to manage the Kumbh."The last major gathering in Allahabad in 2013 drew 120 million devotees, organizers said -- with 30 million plunging into the holy waters on a single auspicious day.Nearly 30,000 police have been deployed to oversee crowds for the huge undertaking, and prevent stampedes that have marred previous gatherings.The ancient city in Uttar Pradesh rises alongside the banks of the Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers.

That apart, it is an invitation to watch Nayak one more time and discover aspects of it that eluded one on earlier viewings. It is a readable, lucid expansion of the story of a Bengali matinee idol whose carefully preserved image is peeled off layer by layer by the editor of a women’s magazine who decides on the spur of the moment to interview the superstar during a 24-hour train ride from Calcutta to Delhi. What are the notable contemporary Hollywood smash hits that have been novelised? Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Interstellar, Air Force One and Saving Private Ryan are among them. There have been other such books in the recent past — Anushka Ravishankar’s Dhanak (based on Nagesh Kukunoor’s 2016 film of the same name), Suhrita Sengupta’s All that Could Have Been (from Mahesh Bhatt’s Hamari Adhuri Kahani, 2015) and Kersi Khambatta’s The Village of Pointless Conversation (from Homi Adjania’s Finding Fanny, 2014), besides a graphic novel version of Sholay. The man behind the mask, as he lets his guard down, reveals his frailties, fears and regrets offering the reader the portrait of a super-successful but deeply flawed mass entertainer.The only way the novelised Nayak can find readers is by reviving the enthusiasm that one might have felt when one first saw the film.The novelised Nayak, which faithfully follows the chronology of the film, makes up for what it inevitably loses in terms of cinema’s access to ellipsis, framing, sound and suggestion to convey meaning and emotion through the use of descriptive elaborations and granular back stories that aren’t a part of Ray’s self-authored screenplay for the 1966 film that won the Special Jury Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Can a book version of a favourite film (especially if it happens to be a widely feted masterwork) ever be a good enough substitute for flickering images on a big screen? Bhaskar Chattopadhyay’s novelisation of Satyajit Ray’s Nayak: The Hero makes a fair fist of an onerous job.
The narrative elements that make up the film, which features Uttam Kumar and Sharmila Tagore in the lead roles, are described in detail in the book. How many Indian readers would be enthused to embrace the book with that intent in mind? On that will hinge its relevance and success.Saibal Chatterjee is a National Award-winning film critic and writer based in New Delhi. To that extent, it could serve as a helpful companion piece to a marvellously insightful cinematic probe into the life and times of a movie actor through means that go back and forth between the strikingly minimalist and the stylistically expansive.In the film, the "nightmare" sequence in which the hero sinks into a quicksand of money while his disillusioned theatre mentor withdraws his outstretched hand was presented as a literal, heightened rendition of the movie star’s gnawing sense of guilt.You cannot take a movie to bed no matter how much you love it.It is, however, unusual for a film like Nayak to receive book treatment. In Hollywood today, publishing tie-ins are usually reserved for sci-fi, fantasy and superhero films — tent-pole productions that have a worldwide following and whose fans have an unquenchable thirst for spinoffs of all kinds.The book keeps the film’s essence intact in its exploration of stardom and the nature of fandom, the wages of showbiz success and the adversarial relationship between cinema and theatre, and through it all a probe into the psyche of the 1960s Bengali bhadralok, all of it obviously drawn from the film. Somehow, the impact of the powerful cinematic passage is lessened.  
It is the medium that lets him down. But that isn’t the writer’s fault. From 1933’s King Kong, one of the first mainstream American movies to be turned into a book, to the 2014 blockbuster Godzilla, whose novelised form made it to the NYT Best Seller List, moving images Garden Gazebos for sale have been frozen into words on static printed pages times without number.In India, though, novelisations are a recent phenomenon sparked principally by Bahubali: The Beginning (2015), which last year became Anand Neelakantan’s The Rise of Sivagami.In the book, the scene occupies several pages on which every split-second of what we see on the screen is spelt out in words.For this writer who watched the film at least a decade and a half after it was released, the book is a welcome tribute to a wonderful film and its celebrated creator. The thrust of the film’s theme is still as relevant as is was half-a-century ago.There is nothing novel about the novelisation of a film. It has been a norm in Hollywood for many decades.Even if it were a standalone book, Nayak: The Hero would pass muster. The book, derived from the screenplay, comes rather close to leaping across the chasm that necessarily exists between the resources at cinema’s disposal and the tools available to a writer of fiction.

"Shedding light on the journey experience, she says, wherever she goes, people are very supportive of her. I couldn’t get the funds, that’s when I decided to go on a solo cycling expedition covering the entire country and neighbouring countries including Pakistan.  
It had an AP number plate. "I have covered close to 5,800 km, including Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.Her next destination will be Rajasthan."Ask Jyothi about the challenges she faced during such an arduous journey all alone and she admits, "I have not come across any challenges as such.Inspired by the Iron Nun — the 86-year-old nun who beach chair manufacturers has participated in 377 triathlons around the world and 45 Ironmans — mountaineering instructor Jyothi Rongala aims to get into the Guinness World Records with solo cycling expeditions across India and prove to the world that Indian roads are safe for women. I took shelter under a truck on the highway.Talking about this 30,000 kilometre-long journey in 300 days, Jyothi says, "I’ve always been interested in adventure sports. "I will be covering extreme rural areas in Maharashtra, Kanyakumari, Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Telangana and then enter the North East," says Jyothi. So I have limited myself to India. When she can do it at this age, I don’t see any excuse for not doing it at half her age," says Hyderabad-based Jyothi."It was in April that she decided to embark on the cycle tour. "
This is open to the public and the government," says Jyothi, who works for the company Indian Open Data Association. "It was 48 degrees in April and after riding 98 km, I reached Jhansi.  "There are so many inspirations but the real inspiration is the Iron Nun.. After reaching Delhi, I broke my shoulder; that’s why I’m on a break currently and will resume my ride next week. After listening to me, he cooked the meal for me and said, ‘I want my daughters to be like you’," says Jyothi. Being a mountaineering instructor, her plan was to cycle from Kanyakumari to Kashmir, reach Kargil and from there climb the 7,000-meter peak. The truck driver came to me and asked what I was doing. I wanted to do this as a multi-sports event as no one has ever done this before.Bike cost: Around Rs 1 lakhCheck air quality: Jyothi will be carrying an air quality device on her bicycle — to read about and give data about the quality of air wherever she travels. It’s more physiological — getting up, riding 100 km, pitching my tent and eating what I get from locals, since I am riding without money. But I applied to the Guinness World Records to attempt the title of longest distance covered within a single country.

Two suspension points equate to a ban from one Test or two ODIs or two T20Is, whatever comes first for the player.Ravi, third umpire Simon Fry and fourth official Rob Bailey..Four suspension points equate to a ban from one Test and two ODIs or two T20Is, two Tests or four ODIs or four T20Is, whatever comes first for the player.7 of the ICC Code of Conduct for Player and Player Support Personnel, which relates to "using language, actions or gestures which disparage or which could provoke an aggressive reaction from a batsman upon his/her dismissal during an International Match".  
During the opening day’s play in the Lord’s Test against England on Thursday, Rabada was found guilty of breaching article 2.As such, Rabada has been suspended from his sides second Test against England, which will be played at Tent Bridge from 14-18 July.Rabada admitted the offence on Friday afternoon and accepted the sanction proposed by Jeff Crowe of the Emirates Elite Panel of ICC Match Referees and, as such, there was no need for a formal hearing. Level 1 breaches carry a minimum penalty of an official reprimand, a maximum penalty of 50 per cent of a player’s match fee, and one or two demerit points.6 of the Code, have now been converted into two suspension points. Thursdays incident related to Rabada using inappropriate language after dismissing England batsman Ben Stokes, which were audible over the stump microphones and also resulted in the batsman to turn before walking off the field.
Rabada has accumulated four demerit points within a China custom tent Manufactures 24-month period following his latest breach for which he received a 15 per cent fine and one demerit point.The charges were leveled by on-field umpires Paul Reiffel and S.London: South African pacer Kagiso Rabada hasbeen suspended for next weeks second Test against England at Trent Bridge for breaching ICCs Code of Conduct during the opening days play of first Test. Following this suspension, the four demerit points will remain on Rabadas disciplinary record.As Rabada had received a 50 per cent fine and three demerit points in the fourth One-Day International against Sri Lanka in Cape Town on 8 February 2017, with the addition of this one demerit point, he has reached the threshold of four demerit points, which, pursuant to article 7. If he reaches the next threshold of eight or more demerit points within a 24-month period, then they will be converted into four suspension points.