Kumbh Mela

India's brutal new COVID outbreak set records on April 21 with more than 2,000 deaths in 24 hours as hospitals in New Delhi ran perilously low on oxygen.

India has been in the grips of a second wave of infections blamed on lax government rules and a new "double mutant" virus variant, adding almost 3.5 million new cases this month alone.

Twenty-seven people were killed and 40 injured on July 14 in a stampede in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, police said, as crowds surged to bathe in the Godavari River on the first day of a religious festival held once every 144 years.