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A Hindu devotee flips his hair in the waters of the holy Ganges river during the auspicious bathing day of Makar Sankranti in Allahabad, India. The Maha Kumbh Melad festival is believed to be the largest religious gathering on Earth, attracting more than 100 million people. The festival is held every 12 years on the banks of Sangam, and is celebrated for 55 days.
PHOTO: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images
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“She should have called the culprits brothers and begged before them to stop … This could have saved her dignity and life. Can one hand clap? I don’t think so.”
Self-described Indian “spiritual guru” Asaram Bapu told his followers that “guilt is not one-sided” in the case of 23-year-old medical student Jyoti Singh Pandey who was brutally gang raped on a bus last month. She later died from her injuries.
Unfortunately, Bapu is not alone in his mindset. Here, 6 examples of politicians blaming the victim.
Photo: AP/Saurabh Das
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AGAIN. CONGRATULATION.
On a beach in Odisha, an eastern Indian state, sand artist Sudarshan Patnaik crafts an elaborate if temporary salute to Obama’s win. Is that the Washington, D.C., skyline? We’re guessing yes.
Photos of the world reacting to Obama’s win
PHOTO: Reuters
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Top: South Korean special army soldiers show off their martial arts skills at the Gyeryong military headquarters south of Seoul. PHOTO: AP Photo/Lee Jin-man
Left: An Indian devotee carries the head of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, after immersing it in the Bay of Bengal during the 10-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival in the southern Indian city of Chennai. The dip in the sea symbolizes a ritual seeing-off of Ganesh’s journey home, taking with him the misfortunes of mankind. PHOTO: REUTERS/Babu
Right: Former President Bill Clinton kisses his wife, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as he introduces her before her speech at the Clinton Global Initiative in New York on Sept. 24. PHOTO: REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
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Introducing the McCurry Pan, one of the menu items to be offered at the world’s first vegetarian McDonald’s, which is set to open in Amritsar, a northern Indian city.
McDonald’s has always tried to tweak its menu to suit local tastes, a particularly daunting challenge in India, where up to 42 percent of the population avoids meat altogether. India’s Hindu majority, which considers cows holy, avoids beef. The country’s large Muslim minority shuns pork. Both Hindus and Muslims, however, can enjoy meat-free fare equally.
“There is a big opportunity for vegetarian restaurants,” says Rajesh Kumar Maini, a McDonald’s spokesman in northern India.
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Top: A man walks his pet pig in Mexico City.
Left: Masked protesters take part in a flash mob in support of Russian feminist band Pussy Riot.
Right: Devotees form a human pyramid during the Hindu festival Janmashtami in Mumbai, India.
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The week’s best photojournalism
In some of the week’s most vivid images an incense-maker dries rose petals, a Mauritanian police officer rests in a tent , visitors cross a new elevated walkway constructed over a tiger’s pen, and members of the English National Ballet pose for an unlikely publicity photo.(Source: theweek.com)
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Train surfing: India’s ‘perilous’ new sport
Some “self-styled stuntmen” in Mumbai, India, have given the world a new extreme sport: Jumping on the side of a moving train, dragging their feet along the station platform, then hanging on the side of the train, slapping metal poles, and performing other terribly unsafe acrobatics.
Probably one of the most nerve-racking videos you’ll watch today.
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Famed British traveler and novelist Colin Thubron loves books that take readers on a journey. Here are his favorites:
- Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple (Knopf, $27). Dalrymple, who has lived in New Delhi since 1989, offers vivid essays here on the syncretic world of India. At a time when Islamic extremism and Hindu nationalism threaten to polarize the nation’s population, it is salutary to be reminded of the sheer variety—ascetics, mystics, yogis—in both faiths.
- Soul Mountain by Gao Xingjian (Harper, $16). Part memoir and part novel, this haunting journey through inland China is at once a voyage into myth and history, and a journey into the author’s fragmented selves. In 2000, Gao became the first Chinese writer to win the Nobel Prize.
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The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and Japan by Ian Buruma (Atlantic, $18). Buruma sheds light on the contrasting mentalities in Japan and Germany after WWII. He is especially perceptive on Japan, and the book becomes an indictment of historical amnesia, with a resonance beyond Japan’s borders.
