While devout Hindus wait for up to 90 hours to see their favourite deity at Ganesh Chaturthi, one of India's major festivals, others are opting to dodge the queues this year and say a virtual prayer instead.

The 11-day celebration of the birth of elephant-headed Lord Ganesha draws millions to worship at decorated idols of the god, but the statues are increasingly available to followers via live Internet streams.

In the remote town of Kannauj, the perfume capital of India, traditional workers are struggling to keep their craft alive in the face of fierce competition from modern fragrance makers.

This fight, between small businesses such as the Pragati Aroma Oil distillery and global groups such as Armani and Chanel, mirrors thousands of other battles across India between ancient practices and the forces of modernity.

The United States embassy in New Delhi was shut on Friday and employees were asked to stay on the compound due to the risk of protests over an anti-Islam film, embassy sources said.

The decision to close the embassy was taken by authorities to prevent any "untoward incident" near the highly guarded premises in the diplomatic quarter of the capital, an official told Agence France Presse, requesting anonymity.

The death toll from a series of landslides and floods reached 45 in northern India on Saturday as rescuers pulled 17 more bodies from the debris, a state government minister told Agence France Presse.

Most of the deaths occurred in the early hours of Friday after heavy downpours in Rudraprayag and Bageshwar districts of the scenic Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, local disaster management minister Yashpal Arya said.

Eighty-six people were arrested on Friday after a group of several hundred Muslim protesters threw stones and smashed windows at the U.S. consulate in the Indian city of Chennai, police said.

"They smashed the window panes, surveillance camera and tried to scale over the compound wall, but we dispersed them while exercising restraint," a senior police officer said. "We made 86 arrests."

At least 28 people in northern India died on Friday in landslides and flashfloods triggered by heavy overnight monsoon rains and about a dozen others are missing, a rescue official told AFP.

The deaths occurred in the early hours after particularly heavy downpours in the Rudraprayag and Bageshwar districts of the scenic Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, Piyush Rautela from the state disaster management cell told AFP.

A group of 170 Hindus from Pakistan who travelled to India on pilgrim visas have said they will not return home due to alleged persecution in the Islamic republic.

Officials in the western Indian state of Rajasthan have reported an increase in Hindu refugees, but Pakistani authorities say the numbers are exaggerated and those who leave are economic migrants seeking better jobs.

Police in southern India on Tuesday arrested dozens of activists accused of leading violent protests against the loading of uranium at a new nuclear power plant.

One fisherman was shot dead by police on Monday as hundreds of protesters clashed with armed officers in Tamil Nadu state's Koodankulam region, where crowds tried to lay siege to the Russia-backed project.

India's national space organization has marked its 100th mission by launching French and Japanese satellites.

The Indian Space Research Organization said Sunday's launch of a French observation satellite and a Japanese microsatellite was a success.

Pradeep Kumar, a muscular man in shades and tattoos, pulls up on a motorcycle, ready for his job as a bouncer. Not at a nightclub, but at another workplace where violence is common in India: a hospital.

He and his burly colleagues keep the emergency and labor rooms from filling up with patients' often agitated relatives and friends. The bouncers are polite, yet so tough-looking that people think twice about ignoring their orders.