Sign up for free

Newsletters

Once a month
get new photos
and expert tips.

Photography
Main Photo Galleries Wallpapers Photo of the Day Photographers Photo Tips Buy Prints

Photo of the Day

April 09, 2008

Workers Planting Rice, India, 2003

Photograph by William Albert Allard

Women from India's so-called Untouchable caste plant rice in a large field. Consigned by birth to the lowest social strata, Untouchables number some 160 million, about 15 percent of India's people. Considered impure by Hindu law, they are generally permitted to perform only the most menial jobs.

(Text adapted from and photo shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Untouchable," June 2003, National Geographic magazine)