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Subscribe to RSSMembers of a global youth organization, AISEC, celebrate Diwali festival with glowing sky lanterns to promote an ecofriendly Diwali in Calcutta, India, Nov. 9, 2012. Scores of youth from Calcutta participated in the festival.
Piyal Adhikary / EPA
Piyal Adhikary / EPA
Rain brings relief from the heat to Calcutta, India
Rain clouds illuminated by the setting sun create a dramatic scene over the Indian city of Calcutta on June 9, 2012. Following a long and hot summer the clouds heralded this season's first rainfalls.
See more weather photos in PhotoBlog.
Monsoon rains in Kolkata, India
Piyal Adhikary / EPA
Commuters wade through water during a heavy rain shower in Kolkata, India on June 17. Monsoon rains enter India's mainland from the southern state of Kerala at the end of May or in the first week of June, and then progress to cover the rest of the country by July.
Piyal Adhikary / EPA
Rickshaw wallahs at work as monsoon rains fall in Kolkata on June 17.
Related content: India struggles to perfect art of monsoon forecasting.
Elections in India's communist bastion
Rupak De Chowdhuri / Reuters
A woman holds up her ink-stained finger after casting her vote outside a polling station during the sixth and final phase of voting in Lalgarh village in West Midnapore district in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal on May 10. The results for the month-long staggered election of the state will be known on May 13.
As we reported last month, elections in the Indian state of West Bengal could see a populist maverick unseat the world longest-serving, democratically elected communist government.
Piyal Adhikary / EPA
An elderly woman waits on the gate of her home next to a wall painted with symbols and slogans of the ruling Left Communist party of Bengal in Mukundapur village 35km east of Kolkata, on 22 March.
After 34 years of communist rule, federal Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, a firebrand orator known as "Didi" or "elder sister," looks set to overthrow the communists blamed for leaving West Bengal and its capital
Kolkata in a time-warp of Soviet era state control.
Bikas Das / AP
Indian Railway Minister and leader of the Trinamool Congress party Mamata Banerjee waits for the arrival of Indian Prime Minister and Congress party leader Manmohan Singh during an election campaign in Kolkata on April 23. The Congress party and Trinamool Congress party are allies in the ongoing six-phased elections for the state of West Bengal.
The results are expected to be announced on Friday. Tripti Lahiri of the Wall Street Journal blogged today on what a victory for Ms. Banerjee might mean for the state.
Students celebrate the Holi festival in Calcutta, India
Piyal Adhikary / EPA
Indian students apply color on each other as they celebrate the Holi festival in Calcutta, India on March 16, 2011. The Rabindra Bharati University organized the festival of colors at their campus. Holi is an ancient Indian festival to mark the arrival of spring. This year, the main Holi celebrations will take place on March 19.
Holi is a spring festival celebrated by Hindus and Sikhs at the end of the winter season. It is primarily observed in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The festival features people throwing colored powder and colored water at each other. The most celebrated festivals have become tourist destinations, and those celebrations last up to 16 days.
Piyal Adhikary / EPA
Indian students celebrate the Holi festival in Calcutta, India.
Bikas Das / AP
A sadhu, or Hindu holy man, smokes marijuana at a transit camp in Calcutta, India, Jan. 6. Pilgrims are arriving in the city before proceeding onward for an annual holy dip at Gangasagar, the confluence of Ganges River and Bay of Bengal, some 140 kilometer (87 miles) south of Calcutta, on the occasion of Makar Sankranti that falls on Jan. 14.