River Ganga

In Uttar Pradesh's Kanpur, an IIT student identified as Chanchal Kumar Meena drowned to death in River Ganga, confirmed police on June 19. As per PTI,  ACP Kernalganj Tirpurari Pandey said, "Two students of IIT Kanpur had drowned while taking bath in river Ganga.  One of them was saved, while the other one drowned." Notably, a group of 10 IIT-Kanpur students went to the Atal Ghat at the Ganga Barrage.

Thousands of devotees gathered at the banks of the river Ganga on the occasion of Ganga Dussehra on June 20. Covid-19 norms were blatantly ignored and flouted by many taking a dip in the holy river. So far it is not known whether the event was sanctioned by the authorities. Because as per the current rules set by the Yogi Adityanath's govt, all public gatherings are not permitted including religious ones.

The Jal Shakti Ministry on May 11 asked the states concerned to "take immediate cognizance" of the floating corpses in Ganga. Calling out for an investigation, Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat said, "The incident of corpses found floating in Ganga in Buxar region of Bihar is unfortunate." Meanwhile, Buxar SDO KK Upadhyay said that they have made the arrangements to cremate the corpses, which were about 10-12 in numbers.

Uttar Pradesh government is planning to construct 1,038 new Ganga aarti platforms in Bijnor and Ballia districts to attract tourism to the religious hub. Reportedly, new aarti sites would be constructed under the supervision of the state tourism department at a radius of five kilometres on the banks of river Ganga. A government spokesperson said that starting from Bijnor the aarti series would last till the last village of UP in Ballia… read-more