Makar Sankranti falls on 14^th January. This day is celebrated by flying kites or by playing sitolia(game of 7 stones). Makar Sankranti is a harvest festival. It is a mid-winter Hindu festival of India and Nepal. The festival is celebrated to mark the transition of the Sun from Sagittarius to Capricorn during the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere (or the beginning of Uttarayana).

There are different ways of celebrating Makar Sankranti. People play sitolia and fly kites to mark the festive fun of this auspicious day.

This year it has been decided to restrict the schedule for flying kites. Administration has laid down instructions for the flying of kites to be restricted between 6 a.m. to 8 a.m. and between 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Strict action will be taken against people not following these orders.

Kite threads or strings made of plastic or synthetic material and those coated with glass or iron have been banned. Anyone selling these dangerous threads will be answerable to administration.  It has also been pointed out that every year birds face a threat due to these kites. The thread is so risky that the birds get entangled in it and meet with death since the thread cuts through the throat.

There have been several incidents in the past of the kite thread posing a danger for human lives, too. People moving on two-wheelers cannot make out the presence of kite thread coming in their way and this becomes fatal for them.

With inputs from bhaskarnews