A Tamil devotee prays during the Thai Pongal harvest festival at a temple in Colombo January 15, 2016.The Tamil festival of Thai Pongal is a thanksgiving ceremony in which the farmers thank the spirits of nature, the sun and the farm animals for their assistance in providing a successful harvest. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

Passengers board children through the window of a bus as Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC) resumed bus services after the government eased a nationwide lockdown imposed as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 coronavirus, at Jubilee Bus Station (JBS) in Secunderabad, the twin city of Hyderabad on May 20, 2020. (Photo by Noah Seelam/AFP Photo)

A worker collects water chestnuts from a pond on the outskirts of Ajmer on October 3, 2023. (Photo by Himanshu Sharma/AFP Photo)

A devotee lights oil lamps at a religious ceremony during the Diwali or Deepavali festival at a Hindu temple in Colombo, Sri Lanka October 18, 2017. Diwali, the Hindu festival of lights, marks the triumph of good over evil, and commemorates the return of Hindu deity Rama to his birthplace Ayodhya after victory against the demon king Ravana. (Photo by Dinuka Liyanawatte/Reuters)

Cadets prepare to take part in a full dress rehearsal for the upcoming Republic Day parade, in Chennai on January 24, 2024. (Photo by R. Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

A gravedigger has lost his job of 40 years after a photograph of him standing half-naked in a burial plot was deemed offensive and provoked outcry among local newspaper readers.

A child applies make-up as a mimic while asking for alms from passers-by at a market area ahead of the festival of Diwali in New Delhi on October 22, 2022. (Photo by Sajjad Hussain/AFP Photo)

Students with faces painted as Hindu goddess Kali, take part in a cultural event ahead of the Janmashtami festival, or the birth anniversary of Hindu Lord Krishna, inside a college in Mumbai, India on September 4, 2023. (Photo by Francis Mascarenhas/Reuters)