India starts voting in mammoth election

STORY: The world's largest election is under way, as nearly a billion people began voting in India on Friday in a poll that's set to last seven weeks.

Those leaving voting stations show off a forefinger daubed in purple ink, a mark that shows they cast their ballot, and aims to prevent electoral fraud.

This woman says she had waited eagerly for the day, as it's so important for the nation.

The largest of the seven phases of voting began Friday.

Around 166 million voters across 21 states and territories head to the ballot box, across Tamil Nadu in the south, Arunachal Pradesh on the Himalayan frontier with China, and the most populous Uttar Pradesh in the north.

The vote sees Prime Minister Narendra Modi hoping to clinch a historic third term in office, he's called his first two terms "appetizers", with the "main course" served in the third.

Modi has campaigned for more growth, welfare, and Hindu nationalism.

His Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP faces an alliance of two dozen opposition parties, which promises to fight discrimination and to save democratic institutions from what they say is Modi's dictatorial rule.

His government and party face criticism they discriminate against India's 200 million minority Muslims to please their hardline Hindu base, which they deny.

Surveys say the BJP will easily win a majority, even as concerns grow about unemployment, inflation and rural distress in the world's fastest growing major economy.