EXPLAINED: Unesco | Rare Historical Photos

Durga Puja on Thames: British Bengalis parade idol by boat; aims to boost tourism

British Bengalis marked the fifth annual Durga Parade on the River Thames in London this Saturday. The event featured a decorated idol of Goddess Durga sailing past famous landmarks like Big Ben and the London Eye. Musical performances and dancing were part of the celebrations aboard the boat, showcasing local…

The Times of India · 1h ago

Morocco in One Loop: Marrakech, Atlas Passes and Desert Nights

Morocco does not ease you in. The moment you step out of Marrakech's Jemaa el-Fna at dusk, with the smoke from the food stalls thickening and the call to prayer bouncing off the Koutoubia minaret, the country has already started working on you. The loop described here runs roughly 1,200…

Times Life · Oct 31

Greece Beyond Santorini: Peloponnese, Ferries and the Cheap Months

Greece sells itself on one image: a blue dome against a white wall above a caldera. That image is real, and it costs accordingly. A bed in Oia in July runs north of ₹25,000 a night, the lanes are shoulder-to-shoulder by ten in the morning, and the sunset viewpoint requires…

Times Life · Oct 30

Independent republics, castles and bagels: How to spend 24 hours in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania

From strolling around the UNESCO-listed Old Town to reading the constitution of the independent republic Užupis, Lithuania’s capital city is perfect to explore in just one day.

Euronews · Oct 26

What a Ramsar Listing Actually Obliges India to Do for a Wetland

India's 75th Ramsar site was announced with the kind of fanfare that accompanies a record broken. What followed the announcement, in most cases, was silence, not because nothing was required, but because the requirements are poorly understood outside the small circle of wetland ecologists who track them. The Ramsar Convention…

Times Life · Oct 26

UNESCO adds three Indian sites to Tentative List, from Andaman volcanoes to Chhattisgarh’s Sirpur: What makes them significant?

UNESCO has added three Indian properties to its World Heritage Tentative List: the Karst-mud-volcano Complex of Baratang, the Andaman Subduction Volcanoes and the Sirpur Cultural and Archaeological Landscape. Located in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Chhattisgarh, the sites represent India’s geological diversity and archaeological heritage. Tentative-list inclusion is a…

The Economic Times · Oct 25

In Germany’s Halligen islands, a bird sanctuary faces rising sea levels

Three out of five bird species are in decline worldwide, and one in eight is threatened with extinction. In the Halligen islands of northern Germany, a sanctuary for migratory birds is under threat due to rising sea levels. These 10 small islands – listed as a Unesco World Natural Heritage Site –…

Radio France Internationale · Oct 25

Wai, Pollachi and Chanderi: What Film Locations Actually Look Like

A film location is a promise the movie makes on the town's behalf, and the town rarely agreed to the terms. Wai looks luminous in the rain sequence. Pollachi looks eternal in the golden-hour wide shot. Chanderi looks like a city that stopped mid-sentence in the fifteenth century. None of…

Times Life · Oct 25

India's Lost Railways: Where You Can Still Trace the Closed Lines

The Shakuntala Railway still exists on paper, in satellite imagery, and in the memory of the farmers whose cotton fields it once crossed. Operated for over a century by a British private company, the Killick Nixon group, it ran 190 kilometres through Vidarbha, connecting Yavatmal to Murtijapur, and it was…

Times Life · Oct 23

Railway Museums and Working Sheds: Where India Still Runs on Steam

India retired steam from mainline service in 1995, but retirement here was never quite final. Across four cities and one set of mountain gradients, locomotives that should be museum pieces are oiled, fired, and sent out on schedule. The traveller who knows where to look finds not a nostalgia exhibit…

Times Life · Oct 23