“YagYang”. The Apatani are tribal people living in north east of India in the region of Arunachal Pradesh. Tattooing and stuffing of large nose plugs is the particularity of these women. YagYang 75 years old, her husband passed away few months ago and she feels very alone, during my visit I was very fond of this woman and I wanted to spend some more time with her, so I asked her which was her favorite dish. The next day i returned with the fresh fish, as she mentioned, and when she saw me she was very happy and welcomed me with a big smile. Photo location: India. (Photo and caption by Passarini Mattia/National Geographic Photo Contest)

A Sloth Bear recently befriended a human family in Lakhapada village in India. While he was never domesticated, the sloth bear chose to bond with the family and become more than a pet, he was a member of the family.

“Mehndi or menhdi is the application of henna as a temporary form of skin decoration in India, as well as by expatriate communities from the country. The word mehndi is derived from the Sanskrit word mendhikā. The use of mehndi and turmeric is described in the earliest Vedic ritual books. Haldi (Staining oneself with turmeric paste) as well as mehndi are important Vedic customs as a symbolic representation of the Outer and the Inner Sun. Vedic customs are meant to awaken the “inner light” and so the gold of the inner Sun has an important symbolic function”. – Wikipedia

Photo: Application of henna or “Mehndi” to a girls hand in a market on October 18, 2010 in Jaipur, India. (Photo by Simon de Trey-White/Getty Images)

A man holds a cow at the cattle market in Maiduguri, Nigeria, March 9, 2016. A Nigerian government push to strangle the Boko Haram insurgency has shut down the cattle trade that sustained the city of Maiduguri, leaving many residents with no livelihood, including many of the two million people displaced by the war. In recent months the army has taken back much of the territory lost to the jihadists during the five-year insurgency. (Photo by Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters)

Urszula Sidoruk, 19, from the paramilitary group SJS Strzelec (Shooters Association), trains her workout at a gym in Siedlce, eastern Poland March 18, 2014. Inspired by the war in Ukraine, growing numbers of Poles are joining volunteer paramilitary groups, where they receive basic army training and prepare to defend their homeland. (Photo by Kacper Pempel/Reuters)

Women walk at lunch time along Kings Road in Chelsea during Storm Eunice, in London, Britain, February 18, 2022. Britain put the army on standby Friday and schools closed as forecasters issued two rare “red weather” warnings of “danger to life” from fearsome winds and flooding due to the approaching storm Eunice. (Photo by Kevin Coombs/Reuters)

An undated archive picture shows a dog pulling a Belgian machine gun at an unknown location in northern France. A Viscount in the Armoured Cavalry Branch of the French Army left behind a collection of hundreds of glass plates taken during World War One (WWI) that have never before been published. The images, by an unknown photographer, show the daily life of soldiers in the trenches, destruction of towns and military leaders. The year 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI. (Photo by Collection Odette Carrez/Reuters)

People look on as water from the rising Mississippi River is released through the Bonnet Carre Spillway while washing out a road May 9, 2011 in Norco, Louisiana. The Army Corps of Engineers began redirecting part of the Mississippi River through the spillway today to lower river levels and reduce pressure on levees in order to avoid a catastrophic failure. The water will flow nearly 6 miles north before emptying into Lake Pontchartrain as the Mississippi rises close to the highest level ever upriver in Memphis. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)