China calls Trump tariffs a ‘serious violation’ and vows to respond

Beijing has sharply criticised Donald Trump’s decision to impose a 10 per cent tariff on all Chinese imports, calling the move a “serious violation” of international trade rules.

The Chinese government signalled its intention to respond with unspecified countermeasures while challenging the tariffs at the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

In a statement on Sunday, China’s ministry of commerce expressed its strong opposition to the tariffs, describing them as a setback to the trade relationship between the two nations. The ministry pledged to introduce “corresponding countermeasures”, although it did not provide specific details on what these would entail.

Mr Trump announced on Saturday that from 4 February the US will impose a 25 per cent tariff on imports from Canada and Mexico, alongside the 10 per cent tariff on Chinese goods. Mr Trump claimed the move was related to the flow of fentanyl, a powerful synthetic opioid, into the United States.

China rejected the suggestion that it was responsible for the fentanyl crisis, arguing that it had worked closely with the US to combat narcotics.

“We have always believed that there are no winners in a trade war or a tariff war,” said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry, while adding that China was “firmly committed to safeguarding [its] national interests”. The ministry expressed concern that the tariffs could actually harm future cooperation on drug control.

Mr Trump’s decision to impose the tariffs was seen as part of a broader strategy to address what he considers national security threats posed by immigration and illegal drug trafficking. The US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) has previously linked China’s chemical companies to the global fentanyl supply chain. According to Mr Trump, the tariffs are necessary to curb the illegal flow of fentanyl into the US, which has caused widespread addiction and death.

China said it remained open to talks with Washington, urging the US to engage in “frank dialogue and strengthen cooperation” to resolve the dispute. This marks a contrast to China’s earlier, more confrontational stance on trade issues. The Chinese government is also taking steps to mitigate the impact of these tariffs by enhancing its economic resilience through partnerships with other allies and boosting domestic industries.

Although the dispute could further strain China-US relations, Beijing remains aligned with the rules-based international trade system, as it prepares to challenge the tariffs at the WTO. However, the WTO’s dispute settlement system has been largely paralysed since 2019, when the US blocked the appointment of judges to the WTO’s appellate body.

As tensions continue to rise, China and other countries targeted by US tariffs are preparing their responses. Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau has announced plans to impose retaliatory tariffs on American goods, while Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum has directed her government to formulate a counterplan.

Additional reporting from agencies

Singer defends himself after video goes viral of kissing fans

Indian singer Udit Narayan offered a bizarre defence after a video of him kissing female fans during a performance went viral on social media, describing his actions as an “act of pure affection”.

The video showed the veteran singer performing a popular song from the 1994 Bollywood film Mohra.

As he sang a few female fans moved close to the stage for selfies. Narayan posed for their cameras and kissed the fans on the cheeks. A few seconds later, another female fan requested a selfie and kissed Narayan on the cheek. Narayan responded by kissing her on the lips.

It was unclear when and where the performance took place. Narayan said in an interview it took place “some months ago in the US or Canada”.

Fans reacted with criticism to the video, calling the singer’s behaviour “creepy as hell”.

Narayan defended his actions saying they were a “manifestation of the love between my fans and I”. “Why would I do something now at this stage of my life when I have achieved it all? People all over the world throng to my concerts. Tickets are pre-sold months in advance. There is a deep pure and unbreakable bond between my fans and I. What you saw in the so-called scandalous video was a manifestation of the love between my fans and I,” he told Indian entertainment outlet Bollywood Hungama.

“They love me. I love them back even more.”

Asked whether he was “embarrassed or ashamed”, the singer replied in the negative.

“No, not at all! Why should I be? Do you hear any regret or sorrow in my voice? In fact, I am laughing as I talk to you. It is not something sleazy or secret. It is there in the public domain,” he said.

“My heart is pure. If some people want to see something dirty in my act of pure affection, then I feel sorry for them. I also want to thank them.”

In another interview to HT City, Narayan said nothing about his actions and instead seemed to suggest he wasn’t too bothered by the reaction.

“Fans can be really crazy. We are not like this, we are decent people. Some people encourage this and show their love through this. Why bother making it a big deal?” he said in Hindi.

“There are so many people in the crowd, and we have bodyguards present too. But fans think they are getting a chance to meet, so someone extends their hands for a handshake, some kiss the hands. It’s all craziness. There’s no need to pay too much attention to it.”

Narayan also seemed to suggest there was an “ulterior motive” behind the controversy, telling HT City: “My family’s image is such that everyone wants (a controversy to happen).”

The Independent has reached out to Narayan’s representatives for comment.

Narayan is one of Bollywood’s most well-known playback singers, having been the on-screen singing voice for superstars like Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar through the 1990s and early 2000s.

Shein makes a comeback to India after five years of ban

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s company has relaunched Chinese fast fashionwear Shein in India, almost five years after it was banned by the Narendra Modi government.

Reliance Retail launched the app over the weekend, Reuters reported, citing a person with direct knowledge of Reliance’s launch plans.

Shein has entered a long-term licensing deal with Reliance to sell products manufactured and sourced in India, according to BBC. The new app is offering dresses as low as Rs350 (£3).

Neither Reliance nor Shein have made any official announcement.

The Shein India Fast Fashion app represents a departure from Reliance’s strategy of adding brands to its flagship fashion app Ajio – whose offering includes Superdry and Gap – as it competes with rivals such as Myntra from Walmart’s Flipkart.

Founded in China in 2012 and later headquartered in Singapore, Shein offers a vast selection of low-priced Western clothes. The app was banned in India in 2020 along with Tiktok and dozens of other Chinese apps due to data security concerns after a border dispute soured Indo-Chinese relations.

The Indian government last year revealed that Reliance had entered an agreement with Shein under which Indian manufacturers would supply products under the Shein brand. It did not make any other details public.

“The fashion OG is back,” said a message displayed upon opening the app. Deliveries will initially be limited to a few cities including New Delhi and Mumbai and expanded nationwide soon, it said.

Reliance will pay a licence fee for using Shein’s brand name, said the person with direct knowledge of the matter. There is no equity investment in the partnership, the person said, without elaborating on financial arrangements.

All Shein-branded products sold through the app are designed and made in India, said a second person with direct knowledge of the matter. The clothing will later be made available on Ajio, the person said, without providing a time frame.

Additional reporting by agencies.

Asian stocks plunge over Trump tariffs

Asian stock markets tumbled on Monday after the Donald Trump administration imposed tariffs on Mexico, Canada and China, fueling fears of a global trade war.

Share markets in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and Australia saw sharp declines while European markets reacted negatively as well. The American dollar surged against multiple currencies as Mr Trump hinted at future tariffs on the EU.

The US tariffs, set to take effect on Tuesday, impose a 25 per cent tax on all imports, excluding energy, from Canada and Mexico, and a 10 per cent levy on Chinese goods. Though expected, the tariffs pose a threat to global manufacturers by weakening demand from the US and slowing growth.

All major European stock markets fell by over one per cent while Japan’s market closed 2.7 per cent lower.

Mainland China’s market stayed closed for Lunar New Year, but the yuan fell 0.4 per cent against the dollar.

Taiwan’s Taiex dropped 4.4 per cent, driven by a more than 6 per cent slump in the shares of semiconductor giant TSMC. Japan’s Topix fell as much as 2.3 per cent while South Korea’s Kospi declined 2.4 per cent, led by losses for major exporters with global exposure, including electronics makers Samsung and LG and automaker Kia.

Automakers with operations in Mexico were hit the hardest by the bear run, with Toyota and Nissan falling over 5 per cent and South Korea’s Kia Motors dropping more than 7 per cent.

Taiwanese tech firms with factories in Mexico also saw sharp declines, with Foxconn dropping 8 per cent, Quanta falling around 10 per cent and Inventec down 8 per cent.

Australia’s ASX 200 dropped over 2 per cent at the open, pulling back from a record high on Friday Iron ore miners, including BHP and Rio Tinto, declined as commodity prices fell. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index opened 0.9 per cent lower.

Canada and Mexico vowed to impose retaliatory tariffs while China promised countermeasures and a WTO challenge. Mr Trump justified the tariffs as a response to illegal immigration and drugs coming into the country and warned that EU tariffs were inevitable but suggested a deal with the UK was possible.

Canada is imposing a 25 per cent tariff on select US imports while Mexico’s president Claudia Sheinbaum is pledging countermeasures and preparing a “plan B”.

The imposition of a 10 per cent levy on Chinese goods imported into the US “seriously violates the WTO rules”, China’s commerce ministry said in a statement on Sunday, adding that it would “resolutely defend its rights”.

“We’ll see what happens,” Mr Trump told reporters when asked what countries would be next to be targeted by tariffs. “It will definitely happen with the European Union, I can tell you that.”

“The UK is way out of line. We’ll see,” he added, “but the European Union is really out of line. The UK is out of line, but I think that one can be worked out. But the European Union is an atrocity, what they’ve done.”

He said British prime minister Keir Starmer had “been very nice”. “We’ve had a couple of meetings, we’ve had numerous phone calls. We’re getting along very well. We’ll see whether or not we can balance out our budget,” he said.

“I don’t believe market participants have fully grasped the extent of the potential fallout yet, especially as responses from affected countries unfold,” Tareck Horchani, head of prime brokerage dealing at Maybank Securities in Singapore, told Al Jazeera.

“Investors are rattled at the prospects of a full-blown trade war breaking out,” Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown told the BBC, adding they were “buckling up for a rollercoaster ride for the global economy”.

Zakia Jafri: Human rights activist and Gujarat riots widow dies aged 86

Zakia Jafri, a human rights activist who sought justice for the killing of her MP husband during the 2002 Gujarat riots in India, has died at the age of 86.

Jafri’s death marks the end of a two-decade-long battle to hold political figures accountable for the violence that claimed the life of her husband, Congress Party politician Ehsan Jafri, and 68 others in a massacre at Gulberg Society, a Muslim neighbourhood in Ahmedabad.

Jafri’s husband was one of an estimated 1,180 people, mostly Muslims, who died on 28 February 2002 during religious riots across Gujarat that followed the burning of the Sabarmati Express, a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, in Godhra.

Her son, Tanveer Jafri, confirmed she had died, saying she had completed her usual morning routine before feeling unwell. A doctor was called but declared her dead around 11.30am. Jafri lived in Surat with her son but had been staying with her daughter, Nishrin, in Ahmedabad during her final days.

Teesta Setalvad, a fellow human rights activist and long-time co-petitioner in legal challenges related to the riots, mourned Jafri’s loss. Setalvad wrote on social media that Jafri was “a compassionate leader of the human rights community,” and expressed solidarity with her family. “Her visionary presence will be missed by the nation, family, friends, and the world,” Setalvad wrote.

In 2002, a Hindu mob dragged her 72-year-old husband out of their plush bungalow in Gulberg Society, then tortured and killed him in front of her eyes.

Jafri, 64 at the time, could do nothing to save her husband. The state was under lockdown following the massacre of 59 Hindu pilgrims on the Sabarmati Express the day before. The lockdown was called by the radical right-wing Hindu group the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP).

The 59 killed on the Sabarmati Express were mostly volunteers of Hindu organisations who perished when their coach was set on fire at Gujarat’s Godhra station by a suspected Muslim mob, though who lit the fire is often disputed.

It unleashed violence on such a scale across the state that it led to deep political ramifications and irreversibly altered relations between India’s majority Hindu and minority Muslim communities.

By the end of the day, Jafri had witnessed a violent mob not only kill her husband, but ransack the neighbourhood and set fire to her home of 30 years, forcing her and scores of her neighbours to leave barefoot in search of safety in a state simmering with communal tension.

Police and government officials were accused of directing the rioters and giving them a list of Muslim-owned properties, while India’s prime minister Narendra Modi – who was chief minister of Gujarat at the time – was accused of condoning the violence. Mr Modi has always denied any wrongdoing.

Suspicions that Mr Modi quietly supported the riots led the US, UK and EU to deny him a visa at the time. Those moves were later reversed, and a committee appointed by India’s Supreme Court found there was “no prosecutable evidence” of complicity involving either Mr Modi or senior officials from his state government.

Jafri’s legal efforts were pivotal in the re-investigation of several riot cases, including the massacre at Gulberg Society, ordered by the Supreme Court in 2008. But her pleas for political accountability were consistently dismissed by the courts, culminating in a 2022 verdict that cleared Mr Modi of wrongdoing.

Despite these setbacks, Jafri continued to visit the ruins of Gulberg Society, where she and her family had once lived, up until last year.

“We were planning to go again, this 28 February,” her son Tanveer Jafri told the Indian Express. “She fought from 2002 to 2022… and till the Supreme Court verdict (in 2022) she had hopes that she would get justice.”

Among those offering their condolences for her death included Kerala’s chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who praised Jafri’s legal fight as a “shining chapter” in the history of secular India, while Congress spokesperson Pawan Khera said Jafri “saw her hope for justice die before her eyes”.

“Future generations will hear the history of the ‘new India’ in Zakia Jafri’s tears, sobs, fight for justice, and then her defeat,” Khera wrote in a post on X.

Modi government slashes income tax for middle classes in India budget

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government presented an annual budget to Parliament on Saturday that focused on wooing the salaried middle class with tax cuts and spurring economic growth by boosting agriculture and manufacturing.

In her budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government is focused on boosting private investment to strengthen growth, increasing funding in the agriculture sector and enhancing the spending power of India’s middle class.

“The focus of the budget is taking everyone together on an inclusive path,” Sitharaman said, adding that the government is aiming for a fiscal deficit of 4.4% of India’s gross domestic product for the 2025-26 financial year.

The world’s fifth-largest economy is expected to post its slowest growth in four years due to a sluggish manufacturing sector, persistent food inflation, stagnant job growth and weak urban consumption. The country’s chief economic advisor, in a report released on Friday, forecast India’s economy would grow 6.3% to 6.8% in the next fiscal year.

Here are some takeaways from the budget:

Sitharaman said her government will initiate reforms in sectors like finance, power, urban development and mining, with “transformative reforms in taxation.” She raised the starting point for income tax to $14,800 from $8,074 and said the government will introduce a new income tax bill next week.

“The new structure will substantially reduce the taxes of the middle class and leave more money in their hands, boosting household consumption, savings and investment,” Sitharaman said.

Modi, who is now in his third term as the country’s prime minister, has been under pressure to allay discontent among the country’s middle class and generate more jobs to help sustain growth. Many economists had suggested his government make tax cuts on individuals’ income and implement job creation programs to mitigate rising unemployment.

According to the Center for Monitoring the Indian Economy, youth unemployment was at 7.5% in January, underscoring the challenge of delivering jobs in a country of more than 1.4 billion people.

To boost productivity across the agriculture sector, the Indian government will launch a nationwide program to push high-yielding crops, focusing on the cultivation of pulses and cotton production. Sitharaman said the program will target at least 17 million farmers and raise the limit for subsidized credit offered to them from $3,460 to $5,767.

The government also plans to formally register India’s gig workers and ease their access to health care. Sitharaman said the government will issue them identity cards and maintain a national registry that will ensuring their inclusion in welfare initiatives.

India’s gig economy could employ more than 23 million people by 2030, according to estimates by government think tank NITI Aayog.

Sitharaman announced a new fund for startups and said the government will provide more money to promote innovation in partnership with the private sector and launch programs to push manufacturing and exports. The share of manufacturing in India’s economy is close to 17%, short of its aimed goal of 25%.

The government will infuse more money to increase tourism-led employment in several Indian states and help with building infrastructure and boosting connectivity, Sitharaman said.

She also announced the Nuclear Energy Mission to drive India’s transition toward clean energy, with a goal of developing at least 100 GW of nuclear power by 2047.

Rescuers suspend search for driver swallowed by sinkhole days ago

Efforts to rescue a 74-year-old truck driver from a sinkhole in the Japanese city of Yashio were suspended again on Thursday after cave-ins made the area unstable.

The sinkhole, which opened on 28 January in Saitama prefecture, swallowed the 1,800kg vehicle, trapping the truck driver. Rescuers initially heard the driver responding, but lost contact soon after.

On Thursday, authorities said further cave-ins at the sinkhole had made the area highly unstable. The Straits Times reported that efforts to retrieve the driver were suspended soon after.

The initial collapse occurred at 9.50am local time on 28 January, creating a chasm 5m wide and 10m deep, according to The Japan Times. Another sinkhole appeared in Yashio on Thursday after wastewater from a ruptured sewage pipe flooded the first one. This sparked further collapses, taking down a utility pole and a restaurant signboard.

The original sinkhole was likely caused by a burst sewer pipe under the road.

The two sinkholes eventually merged, creating a crater 20m wide and complicating the rescue operation.

The expanded sinkhole also contains a gas pipeline, raising concerns about a potential leak and forcing the evacuation of nearly 200 households in the area.

It was reported on Thursday that authorities had asked 1.2 million people across 12 cities and towns in the eastern part of Saitama prefecture to limit showers and laundry use in an effort to ease pressure on the sewer system.

“Putting our first priority on saving the person’s life, we are asking residents to refrain from non-essential use of water such as taking a bath or doing laundry,” a Saitama prefecture official told AFP on Thursday. “Using toilets is difficult to refrain from, but we are asking to use less water as much as possible.”

How excitement turned into death and chaos at Maha Kumbh Mela

The pilgrims came, millions upon millions, in an unrelenting tide, forming one of the largest religious gatherings in history. Day after day, the crowd – drawn by faith – swelled and pressed closely together, seeking purification in the sacred waters of the Ganga. They made their way through a sea of people, treading carefully down the slope before reaching the riverbank. At times they leaned on bystanders to steady themselves, other times they threatened to trample those around them. And then, it happened.

In the small hours of Wednesday, tragedy struck the Maha Kumbh Mela in India’s Prayagraj. A stampede near the Sangam Ghat before dawn killed at least 30 people and left 60 injured, with the death toll expected to rise further.

The Maha Kumbh is a Hindu religious festival that is held once every 12 years at the confluence of the Ganga and Yamuna rivers in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

Its origin lies in the Hindu lore that the gods spilled four drops of the nectar of immortality on Earth and, when the Moon and Jupiter align, the Ganga and the Yamuna are joined by a mystical river called Saraswati, meeting at the points where the divine nectar fell.

Any Hindu who takes a dip in the conjoined waters during this time is cleansed of their sins and receives blessings that last for generations, pilgrims at the festival tell The Independent.

They make the trip not just for themselves but for their children and grandchildren.

On this occasion, though, dozens of pilgrims lost their lives as the festival descended into chaos on one of its busiest and holiest days – Mauni Amavasya, or the New Moon day.

For many who were there in the days leading up to this week, it feels like it was a disaster waiting to happen.

The seeds of Wednesday’s tragedy were planted days ago when the Uttar Pradesh police and the Kumbh administration blocked several pontoon bridges for the movement of VIP vehicles. Throughout the festival, politicians and celebrities are afforded opportunities to bathe privately – creating traffic jams and even more cramped conditions for millions of ordinary pilgrims who have to walk miles along narrow pathways.

On 25 January, The Independent came across multiple barricades on different routes to the Kumbh Mela, with seemingly overwhelmed police personnel working to reroute the one-way traffic jam on a narrow road.

“Yogi ji is here. So, we are rerouting,” a police officer explains, referring to Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath.

At pontoon bridge 17, close to Sangam, as the confluence of the rivers is known, several routes for vehicular movement were shut for hours on end. “It will open once Yogi ji leaves,” two police personnel manning the barricade confirm. “No vehicles are allowed on the bridge till then.”

To compound the chaos, roads were often suddenly closed without explanation. Serpentine queues of vehicles were everywhere, with even special commandos riding military-issue vehicles becoming stuck.

As dusk fell on Tuesday, loudspeakers announced the start of Mauni Amavasya, drawing even more devotees towards Sangam. Seasoned pilgrims knew the ideal time for the ritual bath was at dawn, so many of them chose to rest by the ghats, planning to take a dip at sunrise and leave quickly afterwards.

At around 1.30am, there was a massive influx of new pilgrims.

The police forcefully herded them down a narrow path leading to Sangam despite several pontoon bridges offering a better route to regulate this rush, eyewitnesses tell The Independent.

“It was so crowded I felt I would die of suffocation,” Somi Devi, 67, tells The Independent. “I didn’t understand what was happening.”

Chaos ensued as the crowd surged forward. In a desperate attempt to escape the crush, some people climbed poles, which reportedly collapsed.

“I survived this only because of the blessings of Goddess Ganga,” Devi says. The stampede did not deter her from going ahead with her pilgrimage and taking the “holy dip” herself.

The Kumbh has seen stampedes before, in 1840, 1906, 1954 and 1986, according to The New York Times. On the same day of the last Maha Kumbh, 12 years ago, a stampede at the local train station to the festival killed 36 people, and forced the resignation of the organising committee chief.

Measures are put in place to prevent such tragedies from occurring – yet they have been found wanting, time after time.

In the weeks before tragedy struck on Wednesday, the Hindu nationalist government of Narendra Modi in Delhi and of Yogi Adityanath at the Uttar Pradesh state level had been touting the scale of the preparations for the festival, which serves as a powerful display of India’s religious soft power.

In the course of the 45-day festival, some 400 million people are expected to take part in the Maha Kumbh, a staggering number that dwarfs the two million pilgrims who journeyed to Saudi Arabia for the annual Hajj pilgrimage last year.

The festival has attracted several prominent figures this year, such as Indian federal ministers Rajnath Singh and Amit Shah, and Chris Martin of the band Coldplay.

The pilgrimage site has been turned into a sprawling tent city, stretching over 40sq km along the riverbanks and divided into 25 sections to provide smoother management. There are over 3,000 kitchens, 150,000 toilets and 11 hospitals.

Indian Railways is running more than 90 special trains, making nearly 3,300 trips to transport the devotees, in addition to its regular services.

The state government of Adityanath has allocated over $765m for this year’s festival.

Prayagraj is filled with towering billboards and posters of Adityanath and Modi, underscoring the political aspect of the event as the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) seeks to leverage the festival to strengthen its influence.

In spite of the money spent and the scale of preparations, the pilgrims don’t have much to sustain themselves apart from their faith. Earlier this week, prior to the tragic events of Wednesday, they sounded cheerful and accepting of the discomforts of the festival, and humbled by the chance to take their holy dip.

Shri Shivkumari, a 65-year-old with a heart ailment, had been living in a tent on the riverbank for more than two weeks since 10 January. When The Independent meets her she is yet to reach Sangam, despite having walked for over two hours from the other end of the festival site.

But that doesn’t dampen her spirits. “Mother Ganga blesses you with a lot of peace and happiness. Grants wisdom and intelligence. Children live happily,” she says.

As she walks across a pontoon bridge on the river with her son and daughter-in-law, tying garlands on the railing, Shivkumari sings in a regional dialect: “Help us cross the river on your boat. Take me to the other side, O ferryman! Take me to the Ganga, ferryman. I want to worship the holy Ganga.”

Ramlal Yadav, 52, has travelled nearly 300km from Gorakhpur in eastern Uttar Pradesh to be at the Kumbh. He’s still figuring out the practicalities of securing two tents for the 26 people accompanying him, at a cost of Rs 10,000 (about £93) for six days.

Two lines of blue tents stand on bare land, fluttering in the wind, held in place by a pole through the middle and nails at the four edges. There’s not much in terms of privacy, as the tent can’t be zipped or tied. Several pairs of slippers are scattered outside each tent, often occupied by 10 people. Seeing a tent assigned to his group, Yadav is elated.

“There is a toilet and a bathroom. And our mother Ganga is closer to us. There is water. What more do we want?” he says. “Having seen the goddess Ganga, I want nothing else.”

Anju Dikshit, 56, is equally ecstatic to be at the Kumbh Mela. She has travelled 600km from the central state of Chhattisgarh. “I am not here to take advantage of the facilities. We have come here to celebrate Kumbh.”

Sat at the festival are Meena Mishra and her husband. She is reading a prayer book while her husband makes a run to arrange food from the nearest free community kitchen. “What is wrong in this? Everything is here. Our Ganga is here, water and food is there. We don’t need much else,” she says.

The streets even after 8pm are far from quiet. Apart from the hustle and bustle of the crowd, announcements over speakers and street vendors screaming at the top of their voices and preachers giving sermons create a cacophony.

The sermons are delivered by preachers sitting on stages and accompanied by musicians and singers.

One preacher explains why the Lord was born, recounts the number of avatars the Lord has had, and then breaks into a religious song praising Lord Rama.

“Pick up the 18 Puranas, Upanishads and Vedas. And start asking, ‘Who is God? Why is He?’ You will spend your whole life trying to understand this. You will end but the stories of God will never end,” he says, as a musician plays the synthesiser, apparently seeking to complement the seriousness of the question.

Among the listeners is Trojan Hendrickson, 35, who has travelled from Australia after hearing so much about the highly publicised religious festival.

“I want to experience Kumbh for the feeling,” he tells The Independent, adding that he doesn’t quite know what drew him to the festival. “I want to meet all the babas and all the Indian locals. I heard it’s the biggest festival in the world, so I wanted to experience it.”

A popular attraction at the festival is the Kinnar Akhada, a congregation of transgender saints. Transgender people have had a place in religious and spiritual traditions of India going back centuries, explains Devyani Mukherjee, a trans woman, as she gives blessings to believers.

“It is believed that wherever we trans stand that place is filled with positivity. It is to seek for this positivity that people come to us,” says the former activist and model.

For many transgender people in the Akhada, the Kumbh is a spiritual calling as well as a platform to reclaim their religious identity.

Mukherjee says she has always been religious, having been guided into this path by her guru, who understood her struggles and took her under his wing.

Indu Nandgiri, another Kinnar Akhada member, emphasises that their blessings are sought for health, prosperity and long life as she partakes in a unique tradition of giving a one-rupee coin.

“It represents goddess Lakshmi and symbolises abundance,” explains Nandgiri, a former IT professional. “The coin, when received as a blessing, is believed to ensure that food and wealth never leave a devotee’s home.”

This is the tragic irony of Wednesday’s disaster – that it affected so many pilgrims who had travelled seeking nothing more than a blessing for a long life, and the washing away of sins.

Jaiprakash Singh, 64, from Ayodhya is sitting on a plastic sheet in the open, covering himself with a blanket, near the confluence. “I eat sparingly to avoid frequent trips to the public toilets,” he says. “What is more important than God’s blessing? It is enough for us.” Having already spent a night in the open, he plans to stay another. A couple of days later, pilgrims like him who were resting along the riverbanks were among those trampled during the crush.

Despite Wednesday’s events, the festival will continue, with another particularly auspicious day in the celestial calendar falling on Monday 3 February. The authorities at Kumbh have promised to learn from the events of this week, and say there will be no VIP access in the coming days. Changes have already been made to how the flows of crowds are managed.

Adityanath has ordered a judicial inquiry – though he also played down the severity of the disaster on Wednesday, and it took officials more than 16 hours to admit there had been any fatalities at all.

For families mourning the loss of loved ones, excitement at the trip of a lifetime has turned into demands for accountability. Saroja, a pilgrim from the southern city of Belagavi who lost four family members in the stampede, must now accompany them home on a repatriation flight to Karnataka. “Police didn’t make proper arrangements,” she tells Reuters. “They are responsible for this.”