From correspondents in Delhi, India, 04:33 PM IST

Come Sunday and the heart of the capital will be awash in rainbow colours. After a successful and colourful gay pride march last year, Delhi is all set for the second edition of the event June 28.

Encouraged by the huge turnout of supporters in the event last year, this time organisers have promised to make it even more colourful and exciting by adding new features like street play and a wedding band playing loud music as people march.

Unlike other events, the gay pride march is not organised by any single group but by individuals from the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community and its supporters. Last year, they were seen marching with rainbow coloured flags that symbolise their community.

The march will start at 5.30 p.m. from Barakhamba Road and end at Tolstoy Marg in Connaught Place.

A similar march will take place in Kolkata Sunday and in Sri Lanka too.

In a nation where homosexuality is a crime under Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, many were surprised by the huge turnout in the pride march last year that took place June 29. While its organisers had not expected more than 150 people, over 500 participated in the march.

The history behind the 'Queer Pride' goes back to June 28, 1969, when armed squads of the New York Police Department (NYPD) raided the Stonewall Inn, an obscure pub in Greenwich village in New York, that was a regular watering hole of gays.

Several people were bundled into waiting vans. The gay groups at the bar protested and the outcry against the arrests led to full-scale riots and arson that lasted five days.

Since then, every year the week leading up to June 29 is remembered by sexual minorities and those with alternative sexual leanings across the world as the 'Rainbow Pride Week'.

(Staff Writer, © IANS)