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Tens of thousands of Muslims attend annual Biswa Ijtema event in Bangladesh

TONGI, Bangladesh, January 31, 2025 (AP) — Tens of thousands of people gathered on a riverbank near Bangladesh’s capital on Friday to listen to sermons by Islamic scholars at the Biswa Ijtema, or global congregation of Muslim devotees. The three-day annual event will end Sunday when hundreds of thousands of Muslims are expected to join final prayers like every year. This is the first phase of Biswa Ijtema, while the second phase will be held Feb. 3-5. The third phase will be held Feb. 14-16. Biswa Ijtema is one of the largest gatherings of Muslim devotees, held on the sandy

Banks’ loan growth drops for sixth month in December as tighter lending curbs weigh

MUMBAI, Jan 31 (Reuters) – Banks’loan growth moderated for a sixth straight month in December, the RBI data showed on Friday, as the impact of the Reserve Bank of India’s tighter lending norms for unsecured loans continued to ripple through the system. The data showed that banks’ credit increased by 12.4% year-on-year last month, slower than the 15.6% rise in December 2023, excluding the impact of HDFC Bank’s merger with its parent Housing Development Finance Corp. Including the impact of the merger, banks’ loans grew 11.2% last month, compared with 20% in the year-ago period. The loan growth rate had

Election rules row: Supreme Court orders EC to preserve video clips of polling

New Delhi, Jan 31 (PTI) The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Election Commission of India to preserve video clips of the polling during the pendency of the pleas against the decision to increase the maximum number of voters per polling station from 1,200 to 1,500. A bench comprising Chief Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice Sanjay Kumar passed the order the counsel for the Election Commission of India (ECI) sought time to respond to the PIL filed by one Indu Prakash Singh. Singh has challenged the panel’s communications in August 2024 for increasing the number of voters per polling stations

Sacred strokes of color on foreheads are a major display of Hinduism at India’s Maha Kumbh festival

PRAYAGRAJ, India, January 31, 2025 (AP) — The pilgrims come and go as strangers. They march like a sea of people, walking toward the spot where they take holy baths, drawn by the hope that the bathing would bring them salvation. But when they leave — believing their sins have been cleansed by the redemptive bath — they leave with one thing in common: their foreheads display a sacred stroke of color. This sacred stroke, called tilak, is ubiquitous to the millions of Hindu pilgrims attending the Maha Kumbh festival in India’s northern Prayagraj city, where faithful gather at the

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