People smeared with “Gulal” or coloured powder during celebrations of Hindu spring festival “Holi” in Hyderabad, India on March 7, 2023. (Photo by Noah Seelam/AFP Phoot)

A taxi driver waits for passengers inside his taxi parked on the side of a deserted road during the first day of the two-day state-imposed lockdown as a preventive measure against the surge in COVID-19 coronavirus cases in Kolkata on August 20, 2020. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Photo)

Homeless people receive free food offered by the Telangana state governement during a 21-day government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus in Hyderabad on March 26, 2020. (Photo by Noah Seelam/AFP Photo)

A watchmaker waits for customers during a government-imposed nationwide lockdown as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus in Chennai on June 29, 2020. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP Photo)

Men rest on a boat in the overflowed Ganges River under the Shastri Bridge in Allahabad on August 17, 2022, as water levels of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers rose following monsoon rainfalls. (Photo by Sanjay Kanojia/AFP Photo)

Volunteers of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a Hindu nationalist organisation, take part in a route march on the outskirts of Chennai on April 16, 2023. (Photo by R.Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

Women walk towards a polling station to cast their ballot during the first phase of voting for the India's general elections in Parbatsar in Rajasthan, on April 19, 2024. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/AFP Photo)

A Kashmiri woman walks on a footbridge as it rains in Srinagar, June 24, 2015. This year's monsoon rains in India are officially forecast to be only 88 percent of the long-term average. (Photo by Danish Ismail/Reuters)