The mighty Ganges River and its major tributary the Yamuna River now have the same legal rights as a human. The status was bestowed upon the rivers, sacred to hundreds of millions of Hindus, by a ...

Sitting at plain wooden tables, women in face masks roll a brown paste into thin cylinders - helping to recycle some of the millions of tonnes of flowers that Hindu worshippers throw into the Ganges.

Hindu holy men have joined those calling for a cleanup of the sewage- and disease-ridden river regarded as a mother.

Yet the Ganges is likelier to add to the ailments than cure them. For decades, declining water volumes have been a growing worry, as hydropower dams have proliferated, wanton irrigation and ...