Now this was tremendous entrepreneurship, which in the Victorian era caused the rise of Varanasi or Benares silk.

FORBES: Saving India's Silk Weavers

His photographs of the funeral ghats in Benares--unsettling, riveting, weirdly beautiful--were shown at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

FORBES: Editor's Note

Benares, or Baranas, was a city of antiquity and mythology in present-day India.

FORBES: Saving India's Silk Weavers

He calls the town of Matta, a major Taliban stronghold in Swat, the "Benares of terrorism, " using the old name of Hinduism's holiest city, Varanasi.

WSJ: Pakistan Looks at Swat and Sees India

Situated on the banks of the Ganges River, Varanasi (formerly Benares) is visited by millions of Hindu pilgrims each year, most coming to cremate a deceased loved one and bathe themselves in the river's horrifically polluted but extremely holy waters.

FORBES: Lifestyle Feature

The two Niagaras wink at one another across the gorge, the contrapuntal faces of globalism: on the Canadian side, the monotony of our worldwide monoculture, the proliferation of malls and brands and franchises proclaiming globalism's intent to make every town look the same, from Benares to Boise.

NPR: Excerpt: 'Inventing Niagara'