Hindu idols to be immersed in Thames
By Debabani Majumdar BBC News, London

Autumn resonates with the rhythmic beating of drums, decorations and idols in the Indian subcontinent as the Bengali community gears up to celebrate the festival of Durga Puja.
Miles away, Bengalis in London will also get to give a traditional welcome and send-off to goddess Durga for the first time.

Usually, idols of the goddess and her family are made in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal by craftsmen, which are then shipped abroad.

At the end of the festival, they are dismantled, boxed and stored to be used for the next few years, instead of the traditional immersion in a river.

But this time around, images of the deities - 18ft by 20ft - were made in the British Museum by artisans from Bengal and they will be submerged in the river Thames at Putney on 2 October. the rest