The country hit a new global high for the pandemic on Wednesday reporting more than 360,000 new daily cases. It recorded 3,293 deaths, the highest single-day toll for the country... Satyendra Das, an 82-year-old Hindu priest in the city of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh, said most of the tens of thousands of holy men who went for ritual bathing in the Ganges were from other Indian states such as Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Gujarat. He skipped the festival this year because of Covid-19, but he said he knows of at least two holy men in Ayodhya who became infected after attending Kumbh Mela... In the eastern state of West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party held huge rallies in March and April during the state elections. On Wednesday, the state reported more than 17,200 new daily cases, the highest single-day tally in the state so far. On Feb. 26, when the election dates were first announced, the state reported only 216 cases. The state’s previous high came on Oct. 22 of last year, when it reported 4,160 new cases. “These large election rallies along with the Bengali new year celebrations were major contributors to the rapid increase in new Covid cases in West Bengal,” said Baijayanti Baur, doctor and public health specialist based in Kolkata, adding that another major factor was that far fewer people were wearing masks than during the first phase of the pandemic last year.