Manish Swarup / AP

The mother of Ram Singh, the man accused of driving the bus on which a 23-year-old student was gang raped in December 2012, cries as she speaks to journalists inside the family's home in New Delhi on March 11.

Reuters reports: The alleged ringleader in the gang-rape and death of a young Indian woman in December hanged himself in jail on Monday, officials said, a dramatic twist in a case that has provoked outrage across India.

Ram Singh's lawyer said his client had been composed and calm when he spoke to him on Friday and that there were other inmates in his cell in New Delhi's Tihar jail, raising questions about whether it was a suicide and how it could have gone unnoticed by staff in India's highest security prison. Read full story.

Saurabh Das / AP

An Indian police officer prepares to close one of the gates at Tihar Jail, the largest complex of prisons in South Asia, in New Delhi on March 11. Indian police confirmed that Ram Singh, one of the men on trial for his alleged involvement in the gang rape and fatal beating of a woman aboard a New Delhi bus, hanged himself at the jail Monday, but his lawyer and family allege he was killed.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Women in India's 'rape capital' speak out
• Protests turn to mourning for gang-rape victim as India prepares for muted New Year's
• Police try to temper outrage over gang rape

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AFP - Getty Images

An Indian forestry worker walks past the body of a tusker elephant after it was struck by a Guwahati-bound Somporkkranti Express train inside the Buxa Tiger Reserve, some 12 km from Alipurduar, West Bengal, India, on March 5, 2013.

An elephant was killed after it was hit by a train in northeastern India on Tuesday. The train was inside the Buxa Tiger Reserve, an area that elephants pass through as they migrate between India and Bhutan.

The Indian government has been urged to safeguard elephants straying across the country's vast but decrepit rail network, with statistics cited by The Times of India indicating that as many as 49 elephants may have been killed on train tracks since 2010.

India's Railway Minister said on Friday that speed restrictions have been put in place on trains traversing so-called elephant corridors, the newspaper reported. Pawan Kumar Bansal said the government is also considering constructing ramps and underpasses to allow the animals to cross tracks safely.

Related:

How did the elephants cross the road? They went underneath it

Elephant killed by train receives proper burial

Elephant gets stuck in Delhi traffic

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Village women stand in a queue to get themselves enrolled for the Unique Identification (UID) database system at Merta district in the desert Indian state of Rajasthan on February 22. In a more ambitious version of programmes that have slashed poverty in Brazil and Mexico, the Indian government has begun to use the UID database, known as Aadhaar, to make direct cash transfers to the poor, in an attempt to cut out frauds who siphon billions of dollars from welfare schemes.

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

A villager goes through the process of eye scanning for Unique Identification (UID) database system at an enrolment centre.

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

A villager goes through the process of a fingerprint scanner for the Unique Identification (UID) database system.

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

A general view of an enrolment centre for the Unique Identification (UID) database system is pictured at Merta district in the desert Indian state of Rajasthan.

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Ghewar Ram (R), 55, and his wife Champa Devi, 54, display their Unique Identification (UID) cards outside their hut in Rajasthan.

See more images from India in PhotoBlog.

Aijaz Rahi / AP

Indian officials collect evidence at one of the two bomb blast sites in Hyderabad, India, early Feb. 22, after a pair of bombs exploded the previous evening.

Mahesh Kumar A / AP

Sujatha is overcome after seeing her husband Venkateshwarulu's body at a mortuary in Hyderabad, India, on Feb. 21. Her husband was killed in a pair of blasts in a crowded shopping area.

The AP reports: A pair of bombs exploded Thursday evening in a crowded shopping area in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, killing at least 11 people and wounding 50 more in the worst bombing in the country in more than a year, officials said.

The blasts occurred about two minutes apart outside a movie theater and a bus station, police said. Storefronts were shattered and television footage showed the wounded being rushed to hospitals. Read full story

EPA

An injured man is carried to hospital from the site of a bomb blast in Hyderabad.

Mahesh Kumar A / AP

A member of the bomb squad with a sniffer dog arrives at the spot after a bomb blast in Hyderabad on Feb. 21.

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Altaf Qadri / AP

A domesticated elephant halts at a traffic intersection in New Delhi, India, on Wednesday. There are an estimated 28,000 wild elephants in India, along with thousands of domesticated ones that do everything from performing in shows to carrying heavy loads in the country's big cities.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• A whale takes flight in Mumbai's kite festival
• Indian laundry men spin out decades-old tradition
• Cars wind down a snowy road in India
• High kicks and high hats as India's new security recruits graduate
• Leaking pipeline provides shower opportunity in Mumbai

Kevin Frayer / AP

Hindu holy man Baba Sanjay poses before and after he had his head and face shaved as part of an initiation ritual where he was to become a Naga Sadhu.

Kevin Frayer, a photographer with The Associated Press, took a series of photos of Hindu holy men before and after they had their beards and hair shaved off as part of the initiation ritual to become Naga Sadhus — naked holy men — at the Maha Kumbh Festival in Allahabad, India.

The initiation of new Naga Sadhus can only be performed at the Kumbh Mela, which occurs once every 12 years and sees millions of devotees converging at the confluence of three holy rivers: the Ganges, the Yamuna and the mythical Saraswati.

Editor's note: Photos taken on Feb. 13, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Baba Ramshwal.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Brihaspst Giri.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Baba Vinod.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Baba Giri.

Jitendra Prakash / Reuters

Hindu pilgrims crowd to board a train at an overcrowded railway station in the northern Indian city of Allahabad on Feb. 11. A stampede at a railway station in Allahabad killed at least 36 Hindu pilgrims on Sunday. Twenty-seven of the dead were women, mostly elderly and poor. An eight-year-old girl was also crushed to death.

Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP

Hindu devotees returning from Maha Kumbh jostle to get in a coach of a train at the main railway station of Allahabad, India, on Feb. 11.

Published at 12:30 p.m. ET:

Reuters reports: A stampede at a railway station in northern India killed at least 36 Hindu pilgrims on Sunday, the busiest day of the world's largest religious festival at which some 30 million had gathered to wash away their sins in the sacred Ganges river.

Twenty-seven of the dead were women, mostly elderly and poor. An eight-year-old girl was also crushed to death. A Reuters witness saw a woman weeping at the train station, surrounded by six bodies dressed in brightly colored saris. Read full story

Jitendra Prakash / Reuters

Hindu pilgrims sit on railways tracks as they wait to board their trains at an overcrowded railway station in the northern Indian city of Allahabad on Feb. 11.

Manish Swarup / AP

Hindu devotee returning from Maha Kumbh festival travel in an luggage van of a train from the main railway station of Allahabad on Feb. 13.

Harish Tyagi / EPA

Two unidentified Indian men who reportedly lost their sister in a deadly stampede comfort each other outside a mortuary in Allahabad on Feb. 11.

Rajesh Kumar Singh / AP

Relatives of the missing look at photos of victims of a stampede outside a hospital morgue in Allahabad on Feb. 11.

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• Stampede at Indian railway platform
• Millions converge on Ganges for world's largest (and still growing) religious festival

Follow @NBCNewsPictures

GRAPHIC WARNING: This post contains images which some viewers may find disturbing.

Kevin Frayer / AP

An Indian woman weeps as she watches from a staircase as rescue workers tend to the bodies of those killed in a stampede on a railway platform at the main railway station in Allahabad, India, Feb. 10,

At least 18 people were killed in a stampede in the Indian city of Allahabad on Sunday as Hindus returned from a river dip at the world's largest religious festival.

 An overcrowded railway station footbridge buckled and a railing collapsed, sending some people slipping down the stairs and triggering the stampede, a top state government official told Reuters, not wishing to be quoted by name.

-- Reported by Reuters

Full story: At least 18 killed during India festival stampede

Kevin Frayer / AP

An Indian man weeps as he and other family members mourn next to the body of a relative who was killed.

Kevin Frayer / AP

Indian police carry the body of a pilgrim who was killed.

Manan Vatsyayana / AFP - Getty Images

A woman lies on a bed at the Railway Hospital in Allahabad after being injured.

Saurabh Das / AP

Thousands of people crowd a platform waiting for trains to take them back home after visiting the Maha Kumbh festival in Allahabad, India.

Punit Paranjpe / AFP - Getty Images

A woman weeps as she speaks on the phone in her burnt-out house after a fire raged through the Nayanagar slum in Mumbai on Jan. 25, 2013.

A fire killed six people when it ripped through a slum in the heart of the Indian city, leaving hundreds homeless, emergency services said.

-- Agence France-Presse

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Richa Singh, 24, who works for an online travel portal, says, "women are seen as objects in this city, it doesn't matter what I wear, I still get stared at by men on the streets."

Since the death of a medical student who was gang raped on a bus in New Delhi the issue of women's security has been under the spotlight as never before in India. Mansi Thapliyal, a female Indian photographer working for Reuters, interviewed a variety of women in New Delhi to find out how they feel about their safety since the rape.

Reactions were strong and wide ranging, from women who now feel they need to arm themselves or take self-defense classes, to others who are scared to go out alone at night.

"My city is known as the so-called rape capital of the country," Thapliyal wrote in a blog post on Reuters.com. "They say it’s unsafe, it’s dangerous, and it’s full of wolves looking to hunt you down." Read her entire blog post on Reuters.com.

Thapliyal decided to focus her camera on the city’s women to find what they think about their security, and how they are protecting themselves. Below is a collection of her photos shot earlier this month, and made available to NBC News today. 

Aanchal Sukhija, 19, studying fashion media communication, said that whenever she hires an auto rickshaw she has to send a short message to her father giving details of the auto in order to feel secure.

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Aanchal Sukhija waits for an auto rickshaw outside a metro station in Gurgaon on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Nalini Bharatwaj, 37, chairperson of a management institute, says "Half of the time I am alone with my children and sometimes I have to travel late at night from work. It's enough to shut up anyone trying to molest me or even pass a comment if I flaunt my gun." 

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Nalini Bharatwaj, holds a gun while posing in her office in New Delhi.

Deepshikha Bharadwaj, 24, who works for an advertising agency, has posted the notice that reads, 'Sorry I am not staying late now,' on her desk and said she wanted to send a message to her colleagues that she is not going to work late in the office anymore.

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Deepshikha Bharadwaj stands inside an elevator in her office on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Sweety, 22,a student, travels four hours every day from her village to the city to learn karate and taekwondo. She said, "boys in my village are scared to tease me after I beat up one boy who was passing lewd comments on me."

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Sweety, takes a self defense class in New Delhi.

Simrat, 24, who works for a non-profit arts organization, said, “I made the decision to use public transport as my primary way of moving through the city because I really believe that it is my right to be able to use public space, just as much as it is of any man."

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Simrat travels in the women's compartment of a metro in New Delhi.

Chandani, 22, who works as a cab driver for a social enterprise which claims to provide safe and secure cab services for women driven by women, said demand for their cabs has increased.

 "I am doing a very unconventional job for women,” she said. “Given that I do night shifts, I carry pepper spray bottle and I'm trained in self-defense. Initially I faced a lot of problems but driving cabs at night has helped me to overcome my fears.”

Mansi Thapliyal / Reuters

Chandani sits inside her car on a street in New Delhi.