The Maha Kumbh Mela, considered the largest public gathering in
the world, will be the subject of a case study at Harvard University, which
will study the logistics and economics behind it and the "pop-up
mega-city" that comes to life in Allahabad during the religious event. A
team of faculty and students from Harvard's Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS),
School of Design, Harvard Business School, School of Public Health, Harvard
Medical School, Harvard Divinity School and Harvard Global Health Institute
would travel to Allahabad for the project 'Mapping India's Kumbh Mela'.
They would undertake different researches at the Maha Kumbh,
which draws millions of pilgrims from across the world every 12 years.
"This is probably the first time that
Harvard is doing something like this, where we've pulled together...different
disciplines in a way that all faculty and students are going to be together to
look at a phenomenon," Associate Director of Harvard's South Asia
Institute, Meena Hewett, said in a statement. The team from Harvard
Business School would gather information on business practices of the Kumbh,
including the interaction of the public and private sectors and would also
examine the way in which technology, media, internet connections and cellular networks play a role in this year's logistics as never before. He hoped
that by studying a pop-up mega-city, researchers would learn lessons applicable
to a wide range of mass gathering events, from refugee camps to festivals.
The "size and complexity" of the
Kumbh Mela is inspirational for inter-disciplinary research in a number of
complementary fields of urban studies and design, religious and cultural
studies, environmental science and public health, technology and
communications, Harvard said. The outcomes by each school's research team would
be presented by students and faculty at a university-side symposium hosted by
the South Asia Initiative in the spring semester 2013, and will be submitted
for a final visual and textual publication. With the Maha Kumbh Mela
taking place once every 12 years, the year 2013 marks the first Kumbh which
would be criss-crossed with cell phone towers and where a critical mass of
people would be using mobile phones.(courtesy:ibnlive)
In my view, it’s a very important study
being done in our land of cross cultural differences and it would provide a
chance to understand unity in diversity as well.This study would pave way for future studies on mass gathering planning and management.
By Dr.Shilpy Singh
HOD(Management)
VGI,Gwalior
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