Organised by the Bengali community in Mumbai, Durga Puja pandals offer an extraordinary devotional experience for worshipping Maa Durga. A special bhog is offered to the goddess and distributed as prasad to all the devotees each year. More than 30,000 people take bhog in this pandal each year and cooking at such a large scale is not easy! The scale of cooking is huge and the responsibility is even bigger - but year by year - tirelessly in all devotion - the bhog is cooked and served with love and consumed by thousands in the spirit of Joi Maa Durga! In this episode of Culture Beat, Mid-day’s Katyayani Kapoor explores what goes into making the bhog at Powai Sarvajanin Durgotsav 2024. Take a look.

Amid the Lok Sabha Elections 2024, former Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam along with his wife and daughter joined Shiv Sena on May 03. Shiv Sena President and Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde welcomed the leader at the party office in Thane. Sanjay Nirupam was expelled from Congress on April 03 for indiscipline and anti-party statements. After the expulsion, Nirupam claimed that the disciplinary action against him came following his resignation from the party’s primary membership. The former MP had left the undivided Shiv Sena nearly two decades ago in order to join Congress.