India’s grasp photographer Raghu Rai dies aged 83

India’s grasp photographer Raghu Rai dies aged 83

NEW DELHI, April 26, 2026 (BSS/AFP) – Internationally acclaimed Indian grasp photographer Raghu Rai died on Sunday, his household introduced. He was 83.

A building engineer by coaching, Rai, born in a village in Pakistani Punjab earlier than the partition of the Indian subcontinent, went on to change into an iconic photographer documenting the advanced social and political lifetime of India.

Some of his best-known works embrace documenting the 1971 independence struggle of Bangladesh and India’s worst industrial catastrophe, a 1984 fuel leak in Bhopal that killed an estimated 25,000 individuals.

Rai received the inaugural Academie des Beaux-Arts Photography Award, and in 1972 acquired the Padma Shri, one among India’s highest civilian honours for his distinctive work.

“To the world, he was an incomparable master of photography, the visionary who captured the pulsating heart and soul of India,” lawmaker Shashi Tharoor stated in a tribute.

“Your vision will forever be the lens through which India is seen.”

The photographer’s household introduced his loss of life in an announcement which paid tribute to “our beloved.”

Known for portraits of India’s political and social elite and photographing its tradition and lots more and plenty with equal alacrity, Rai revealed dozens of photo-books together with on the enduring monument to like, the Taj Mahal.

His intimate portraits of Mother Teresa maintain a very particular place in Rai’s work.

Rai was a member of Magnum Photo, nominated to the distinguished New York-based cooperative by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who is understood worldwide for his defining candid pictures.

Rai later moved to photojournalism, working with a number of the nation’s best-known media homes of his time via the Nineteen Sixties and 70s, earlier than going solo in his quest to depict his huge nation’s complexity.

Rai’s work spans taking pictures on movie and digital codecs, each black and white and color.

Rai labored all his life in India, and as soon as stated: “I can never be true to my experiences without a camera.”