ThePrint’s best photographs of the year — 2025 in frames

New Delhi: From Nepal’s Gen Z protests and the Maha Kumbh in Prayagraj to the India–Pakistan conflict, 2025 was an eventful year.

It began with the Kumbh Mela, where lakhs of pilgrims took a holy dip before a deadly stampede followed. Midway through the year, India and Pakistan slid into a brief but intense military confrontation, with a key difference. “Earlier it was tanks and ammunition; now we saw drone attacks,” said ThePrint’s national photo editor Praveen Jain, who had covered the 1971 war and Kargil. Principal photographer Suraj Singh Bisht also covered the tensions from the frontline.

As India recovered, neighbouring Nepal witnessed a violent youth-led uprising that toppled the KP Oli government and culminated in the appointment of Sushila Karki as the country’s first woman prime minister, which our senior multimedia journalist Manisha Mondal covered in great detail. She also documented quieter but no less powerful stories, the wedding of Mukesh Parecha, a Dalit groom who rode a horse under police protection, at a time when similar acts elsewhere drew attacks from the dominate caste Hindus.

Through a year of upheaval, faith, protest and conflict, ThePrint brings you the best photos of 2025.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi adjusts his turban atop the ramparts of the Red Fort during his Independence Day address on 15 August 2025 | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

President Droupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Rashtrapati Bhavan during the ceremonial reception of Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto (not in picture), January 2025, on his first state visit to India as president and as chief guest for the Republic Day celebrations. | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

A first-time MLA elected from Shalimar Bagh seat, Rekha Gupta is the fourth woman chief minister of Delhi | Praveen Jain | Print

Naga sadhus take a holy dip at Sangam on the occasion of Makar Sakranti, the confluence of the Ganges, Yamuna and Saraswati rivers, during the “Maha Kumbh Mela” in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

On 6 February 2025 in Gujarat’s Mandvi village, Dalit lawyer Mukesh Parecha rode a horse in his wedding procession, an act that has often drawn caste-based violence — but he chose to carry a copy of the Constitution of India instead of the customary sword | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

A squirrel ‘takes guard’ ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Guard of Honour at Red Fort | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Indian Air Force personnel rehearse early in the morning at Kartavya Path ahead of the Republic Day parade on 26 January 2025 | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Supreme Court judge Vikram Nath share a light moment during the Judges vs Advocates cricket match at Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi, August 2025, a spirited event that saw lawyers edge out the CJI’s XI | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Mohammed Ashraf and his son Rizwan inspect the damage to their home after returning to Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, May 2025, following days of cross-border shelling during the India–Pakistan military escalation that displaced hundreds of civilians along the Line of Control | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

In September 2025, Prime Minister Narendra Modi finally landed in Manipur, after more than two years of ethnic violence that began in March 2023. His first visit to Churachandpur, where he addressed the public, came with a ban on photography by all but government-approved media. A “No photography allowed” sign at Peace Ground said it all | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

In August 2025, flash floods triggered by intense rainfall and a probable cloudburst tore through Dharali village in Uttarakhand’s Uttarkashi district, leaving homes submerged and debris strewn across the landscape. A National Disaster Response Force personnel was photographed documenting the submerged village, with a lone house partially visible, one of the starkest images from a disaster that killed several villagers, left dozens missing and spotlighted the Himalayan region’s vulnerability to extreme weather | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

Tractors ferry medicines and food to flood-affected villages in Punjab, July 2025, as local communities step in to deliver aid after heavy monsoon rains cut off road access. | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

Thuingaleng Muivah, general secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) and longstanding face of the Naga resistance movement, receives a rousing reception in Senapati, Manipur, on 29 October 2025 — his first visit to the state in over five decades, drawing thousands amidst a historic homecoming. | Suraj Singh Bisht | ThePrint

Devadasi women wearing green bangles hold each other in north Karnataka, April 2025. Though the Devadasi system is outlawed, it continues to be socially practised, trapping Dalit women in a cycle of caste stigma, ritualised exploitation and informal sex work. | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

In Kathmandu, May 2025, fallen protesters from Nepal’s Gen Z movement are cremated with a guard of honour, marking a solemn moment as families and citizens pay tribute to those whose deaths punctuated a turbulent year of youth-led unrest. | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

In north Karnataka, April 2025, a Devadasi woman reads a locally produced community newsletter — one of the few papers printed especially for the Devadasi community — reflecting how information about new rights and protections reaches women still bound by an outlawed system that persists socially despite decades-old bans. | Manisha Mondal | ThePrint

The historical Singha Durbar in Kathmandu — built in 1908 and now the administrative heart of Nepal — served as the office of the prime minister when it was vandalised and set ablaze in the Gen Z protests that swept the capital in September 2025. | Manisha Mondal/ThePrint

At a Congress legal conclave in New Delhi on 2 August 2025, Rahul Gandhi alleged that the 2024 Lok Sabha elections were “rigged,” claiming his party found evidence suggesting irregularities in as many as 70–100 seats — part of a broader assault on the Election Commission’s credibility that animated opposition politics this year. | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

President Droupadi Murmu, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on 5 December 2025, during Putin’s two-day state visit to India for the 23rd India–Russia annual summit — a milestone marking 25 years of the India-Russia Strategic Partnership. | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, and Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Rashtrapati Bhavan during the ceremonial reception of Russian President Vladimir Putin | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress leader Sonia Gandhi at the Parliament complex on 13 December 2025, paying tribute on the anniversary of the 2001 terror attack on Parliament that killed nine people | Praveen Jain | ThePrint

PM Narendra Modi and Lok Sabha Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi at Parliament House complex | Praveen Jain | ThePrint