NEW DELHI, April 26 -- Internationally acclaimed Indian master photographer Raghu Rai died today, his family announced. He was 83.

A construction engineer by training, Rai, born in a village in Pakistani Punjab before the partition of the Indian subcontinent, went on to become an iconic photographer documenting the complex social and political life of India.

Some of his best-known works include documenting the 1971 independence war of Bangladesh and India's worst industrial disaster, a 1984 gas leak in Bhopal that killed an estimated 25,000 people.

Rai won the inaugural Academie des Beaux-Arts Photography Award, and in 1972 received the Padma Shri, one of India's highest civilian honours for his exceptional work.

"To the world, he was...