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Raghu Rai in New Delhi in 2006.
Credit...
Ravi S Sahani/The India Today Group, via Getty Images
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Raghu Rai, Photographer Who Captured Modern India, Dies at 83
Mr. Rai documented major figures like the Dalai Lama and Indira Gandhi, as well as the victims of a poison gas leak in the city of Bhopal.
Raghu Rai in New Delhi in 2006.
Credit...
Ravi S Sahani/The India Today Group, via Getty Images
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By
Jin Yu Young
and
Suhasini Raj
Suhasini Raj reported from Jaipur, India.
April 27, 2026
Raghu Rai, a prominent photojournalist who captured many of India’s political milestones and major tragedies, as well as figures who shaped the country’s modern history, died on Sunday in New Delhi. He was 83.
His death was confirmed by his daughter Avani Rai. She said he had been undergoing treatment for lymphoma.
Over a career spanning more than 60 years, Mr. Rai photographed
Mother Teresa
,
the Dalai Lama
and
Indira Gandhi
, India’s only female prime minister. He also captured daily life in images of the Taj Mahal, a
Mumbai train station
and other landmarks.
Mr. Rai’s harrowing photographs of the 1971 war between India and Pakistan, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh, earned him the
Padma Shri
award, one of India’s highest civilian honors.
He also captured indelible images of a 1984 toxic gas leak in the Indian city of Bhopal that killed thousands of people.
“No matter how many shots I took,” he wrote of that disaster in a 2014
essay
, “one couldn’t capture the scale of it.”
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