A student poses with her painted face, ahead of New Year celebrations at a college in Chennai on December 28, 2024. (Photo by R. Satish Babu/AFP Photo)

Members of Panchayati Akhara Bada Udasin take part in a religious procession as they head towards the Kumbh Mela festival ahead of the royal bath near the Sangam, the confluence of three of the holiest rivers in Hindu mythology – Ganga, Yamuna, and the mythical Saraswati – in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, India, 12 January 2025. Every 12 years, Hindu pilgrims gather for ritual baths at the river's banks during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival. (Photo by Rajat Gupta/EPA)

A Hindu pilgrim takes a holy dip at Sangam, the confluence of Ganges, Yamuna and mythical Saraswati rivers during the Maha Kumbh Mela festival in Prayagraj on February 5, 2025. (Photo by Idrees Mohammed/AFP Photo)

This photograph taken on January 30, 2025 shows a labourer looking into a Hindustan Ambassador yellow taxi, transporting fish at a wholesale market in Kolkata. Kolkata cherishes its past, which is why the one-time Indian capital is mourning a vanishing emblem of its faded grandeur: a hulking and noisy fleet of stately yellow taxis. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP Photo)

An elephant tries to eat leaves during a religious procession called Jal Yatra, ahead of the annual Rath Yatra, or chariot procession of Hindu god Lord Jagannath, in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, June 11, 2025. (Photo by Ajit Solanki/AP Photo)

A man daubed in colours looks on as he takes part in “Lathmar Holi” celebrations inside a temple in the town of Barsana, in Uttar Pradesh, India, March 15, 2019. (Photo by Altaf Hussain/Reuters)

A woman carries her son in a bucket after collecting water from a municipal water tanker on the outskirts of Chennai, India, July 4, 2019. (Photo by P. Ravikumar/Reuters)

A public bus makes its way on a flooded road after heavy monsoon rains in Mumbai, India on August 4, 2019. India receives its monsoon rains from June to September. (Photo by Indranil Mukherjee/AFP Photo)