I was lucky enough to escape last week to the east Indian town of Puri in Orissa for particularly pleasant beach-side holiday. I did very little but relax, breathe in the ocean air and stroll along the shore with my camera. It was, as they say, just what the doctor ordered.…

A few days ago I was discharged from hospital after spending a week undergoing treatment for malaria contracted while working in eastern India. I could never have imagined that my own personal experience would provide such a stark confirmation of the pressing need to invest in essential public infrastructure like drainage.…

If the enthusiastic splashing of the students I met in Sri Lanka could be replicated elsewhere, we might have achieved a significant step towards reducing the appalling rate of child mortality.…

In the past twelve months I have been approached by three publications: America’s Art&Auction, the German ART Magazine and now The Times to illustrate features on the theme of Indian contemporary art. This alone is a measure of the recent international recognition bestowed upon Indian artists including Gupta who I have now photographed on two occasions. Of Gupta’s many wealthy patrons, François Pinault, who bought the artist’s Very Hungry God, is worth US$16.9 billion. It is a sorry commentary on our world to discover that Pinault’s fortune is greater than the entire annual wealth of Gupta’s home-state of Bihar (US$15.5 billion) with a population of 83 million people. It would be wrong to suggest that Gupta’s work helps us comprehend this injustice. But he is certainly one of those individuals whose life, work and success are defined by the disparity of our globalized economy.…

When India’s high-profile politicians head into town, its difficult to ignore their presence. Chidambaram was in Cuddalore to launch a student loans scheme intended to encourage poor families to send their children into further education. I’m entirely supportive of such initiatives but I’m certain I wasn’t the only one in Cuddalore last week who felt that the well-being of students was a rather secondary concern to those elected officials eager to exploit the situation for a bit of self-promotion.…

I have been traveling this past month so I must apologise for neglecting my blog. At the end of August I flew from Delhi to the Maldives where I had the pleasure of taking on a celebrity portrait assignment. The work was a success but beachside portraiture during the monsoon season presents its own unique challenges. I will write more about this episode after the photographs have been published in November.…

This photograph was taken at the opening of a new university just outside Delhi last weekend. Beyond the red carpet, there were thankfully few other symbols to denote distinction among the guests. But it doesn’t take a great deal of searching to find loud pronouncements of status and social standing all over India.…

I welcome the diversity of style of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize and also the exciting prospect of seeing how differently individuals interpret the idea of a ‘portrait’. But I do wonder about the effect on the viewer’s ultimate understanding and interpretation of a photograph when it is hung beside so many unrelated images. When an environmental portrait that directly raises an important and urgent subject is denied context or placed alongside work that has no relevance to it, surely good caption information is more important than ever.…

The value Sri Lanka places on public education explains why it can boast a literacy level of 90 percent while the population of India anguishes around the 60 percent mark. Most of the Indian middle class and all of the upper class have no immediate personal interest in the proper running of government schools.…

In a landmark ruling the Delhi High Court has decriminalised gay sex. One group within gay society that are more visible than any other are India’s transexuals. A series of recent legal victories for Aravanis mirrors the achievements of the wider Indian homosexual community. The photograph above was taken while I was photographing the “Third Sex” Aravanis of Tamil Nadu state earlier this year.…

Instead of hanging out in the pleasant but rather staid company of the park officials who were organising the relocation, we began following Dharmendra Khandal, a maverick anti-poaching activist who heads a small NGO called Tiger Watch. Critical of the park authorities and as a consequence shunned by them, Khandal runs his own show chasing down the poachers and gun-makers who have recently wreaked such havok on the tiger populations of Ranthambore and Sariska.…

Photographing on a labour ward in central India confirmed to me that healthcare divides this country into a tiny minority who can afford top-grade care and the rest who must make do with a under resourced and oversubscribed service.…

Alcohol is a divisive issue in India. From pimps to socialites, attitudes toward drink vary from class to class.…

The National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) provides a clue as to the reasons for Congress’ election victory in India.…

A huge architectural project nears completion in the city of Lucknow. The ostentatious and rather vulgar Ambedkar park is an attempt by Uttar Pradesh state Chief Minister Kumari Mayawati to cement her legacy.…

Ram Advani and his bookstore in Lucknow, India.…