The Taj Mahal, one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites, is set to receive a luxurious "mud-pack" facelift this month as a means to clean the tomb in Agra of its pollution. The iconic monument has received the treatment three times before.

Close to midnight on Sunday, people celebrate the formation of India's 29th state, Telangana, in Hyderabad, India. The state was officially created Monday, marking the formal division of the southern state of Andhra Pradesh. Image via Mahesh Kumar A./AP.

Police are saying that three cousins in the Uttar Pradesh state of Northern India have confessed to the gruesome rape and murder of two teenage girls who were found hanging from a tree in their town of Katra. Their crimes, if they are found guilty, are punishable by the death penalty.

The family of India's wealthiest guru, with an estate reportedly valued at $167 million, believes he died of a heart attack in late January. But his followers have spirited him away to a temple freezer and refuse to turn his body over because, they say, "he has been in deep meditation."

The Gorakhpur Express passenger train, as it was heading toward Gorakhpur in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India, crashed into a parked freight train near Basti in an accident that has reportedly killed over thirty people and injured over fifty.

A New York City police officer is finally allowed to leave India after a court in the country's capital dropped a weapons charge against him, his lawyer said today.

India's Congress Party, which has ruled the country for a decade, conceded defeat on Friday to the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party. Narendra Modi, the Bharatiya Janata Party's leader, will be India's next prime minster.

Indian workers prepare sweets anticipating election victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party at its New Delhi headquarters on Thursday. Official results are expected on Friday, but exit polls by at least six TV stations show the BJP is likely to win enough seats to form a coalition government. Image via Manish Swarup/AP.

A boy walks past Indian Muslim brides sitting during a mass marriage. Thirty-five couples participated in the ceremony in Mumbai on Sunday. Image via Rajanish Kakade/AP.

India's Bharatiya Janata Party's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi displays the victory symbol to supporters after casting his vote in Ahmadabad, India, on Wednesday. Image via Ajit Solanki/AP.

More than 620 million Indians, or half the country's population, defecate openly outside on a daily basis, a public nuisance and health threat that the country has been trying to shut down. But UNICEF has a plan: an animated fever nightmare of a chart topper called "Poo Party."

[Indian Hindu widows play with colored water for the first time as part of Holi celebrations organized by a non-governmental organization Sulabh in Vrindavan, India, on Friday. After their husbands' deaths the women were banished by their families for supposedly bringing bad luck, to the town where devotees believe Lord Krishna was born. Image via Manish Swarup/AP.]

[A Hindu devotee dressed as s demon lies on a representative funeral pyre during a "Shivratri" procession in Allahabad, India on Thursday. "Shivaratri", or the night of Shiva, is dedicated to the worship of Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of death and destruction. Image via Rajesh Kumar Singh/AP.]

First a parrot rats out its owner for a DUI and now this: Last week, a talking parrot helped police solve the mysterious murder of its owner.

As India wends its way from Third World to First World, it is useful to remember that it is an enormously diverse nation that contains not only tech companies celebrated by Tom Friedman, but also swaths of backwards countryside where rape is a common quasi-legal punishment.

Indian officials are now deploying drones in their ongoing hunt for the man-eating tigress that has been terrorizing the region around Jim Corbett National Park. The heavily forested terrain is reportedly unsuitable for elephants, the traditional mobile tiger-hunting platform.

Heads up if you're planning on traveling to northern India soon: A single tiger has reportedly killed at least 10 people in the region over the past seven weeks.

Chesley Sullenberger? Fuck that amateur. He ain't shit.

Eighteen people were killed and 46 were injured in a stampede Saturday in Mumbai, India. The crowd was attending a viewing for the body of the recently deceased Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin, the spiritual leader of the Dawoodi Bohra community. What caused the stampede is unclear.

Although a federal grand jury indicted Indian consulate head Devyani Khobragade for visa fraud and making false statements today, she probably won't be tried for it — instead the State Department has decided to grant her diplomatic immunity.