“The Mahamasthakabhisheka (or Mahamasthak Abhishek) is an important Jain festival held once every twelve years in the town of Shravanabelagola in Karnataka state, India. The festival is held in veneration of an immense 18 meter high statue of the Bhagwan (or Saint) Gomateshwara Bahubali. The anointing last took place in February 2006, and the next ceremony will occur in 2018”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A Jain Sadhu (2nd L) and devotees gather and pray at the feet of the monolithic statue of Jain sage Gomateswara during preparations for the Mahamastak Abhisheka ceremony February 7, 2006 in Shravanabelagola, India. The Mahamastak Abhisheka ceremony is held just once every twelve years where the statue will be bathed with milk, yogurt, saffron, gold coins and other religious items. The statue is said to be the world's largest monolith. The ceremony officially runs February 8-19. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

“The Tibetan Mastiff also known as Do-khyi (variously translated as “home guard”, “door guard”, “dog which may be tied”, “dog which may be kept”), reflects its use as a guardian of herds, flocks, tents, villages, monasteries, and palaces, much as the old English ban-dog (also meaning tied dog) was a dog tied outside the home as a guardian. However, in nomad camps and in villages, the Do-khyi is traditionally allowed to run loose at night and woe be unto the stranger who walks abroad after dark”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A man displays a Tibetan Mastiff he raised during the Tibetan Mastiff exposition on April 7, 2007 in Langfang of Hebei Province, China. (Photo by China Photos/Getty Images)

Firefighters watch as an air tanker drops retardant while battling the Ferguson fire in the Stanislaus National Forest, near Yosemite National Park, California on July 21, 2018. A fire that claimed the life of one firefighter and injured two others near California's Yosemite national park has almost doubled in size in three days, authorities said Friday. (Photo by Noah Berger/AFP Photo)

Ukrainian Serviceman Oleksii Hodzenko, aka Godzilla, was a civilian journalist. His father, Sergeant chief Dmytro "Godzilla" Godzenko was killed on March 31, 2016 at 6 a.m. in a mortar attack near the village of Zaitsevo near Horlivka in the Donetsk region. Since then Godzilla "junior" has joined the army, at a frontline position held by Ukraine's 503rd Detached Marine Battalion on February 7, 2022 near Verkhnotoretske, Ukraine. Regional tensions remain high as Russia continues to amass soldiers and military equipment along its border with Ukraine, where large swaths of the Luhansk and Donetsk regions are held by Russian-backed separatists. Russia has also moved roughly 30,000 troops into Belarus, which borders Ukraine to the north. American and European officials say they do not whether Russian President Vladimir Putin has made a decision to invade Ukraine, but have issued a series of warnings about the country's assertive military posture. (Photo by Gaelle Girbes/Getty Images)

The National Geographic Photo Ark is a travelling exhibition of photographer Joel Sartore’s quest to create a photo archive of biodiversity around the world. So far, Sartore has captured studio portraits of more than 6,000 species – a number that he hopes to double. On 1 July, the ark will open at Melbourne zoo – the first time it has been exhibited in the southern hemisphere. More than 50 portraits will be on display, including many of Australian endangered animals being protected by programs at the zoo itself. These captions have been edited from text supplied by Melbourne zoo. Here: Barking owl. (Photo by Joel Sartore/National Geographic Photo Ark/The Guardian)

In this Thursday, December 1, 2016 photo, Cat Bigney, part of the Oglala Native American tribe, waits on the shore of the Cannonball river for travelers to arrive by canoe at the Oceti Sakowin camp where people have gathered to protest the Dakota Access oil pipeline in Cannon Ball, N.D. So far, those at the camp have shrugged off the heavy snow, icy winds and frigid temperatures. But if they defy next week's government deadline to abandon the camp, demonstrators know the real deep freeze lies ahead. Life-threatening wind chills and towering snow drifts could mean the greatest challenge is simple survival. (Photo by David Goldman/AP Photo)

A pregnant woman poses on June 19, 2018 in Vertou, western France. France had an estimated population of 68.4 million by January 1, 2024, representing a further year-on-year increase of 0.3 percent, limited by a marked drop in the birth rate, the INSEE national statistics bureau of France reported on January 16, 2024. In 2023, 678,000 babies were born in France, 6.6 percent fewer than the previous year, the lowest number of births in any year since 1946. Over the same period, there were 631,000 deaths, down 6.5 percent on 2022, a year marked by the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic and episodes of extreme heat. (Photo by Loic Venance/AFP Photo)