[11] Rai left "The Statesman" in 1976 to work as picture editor for "Sunday," a weekly news magazine published in Calcutta.

[citation needed] For Greenpeace, he completed an in-depth documentary project on the chemical disaster at Bhopal in 1984, which he covered as a journalist with India Today in 1984, and on its ongoing effects on the lives of gas victims.

[citation needed] This work resulted in a book, Exposure: A Corporate Crime and three exhibitions that toured Europe, America, India and southeast Asia after 2004, the 20th anniversary of the disaster.

Rai wanted the exhibition to support the many survivors through creating greater awareness, both about the tragedy, and about the victims who continue to live in the contaminated environment around Bhopal.

[12] In 2003, while on an assignment for Geo Magazine in Bombay City, he switched to using a digital camera "and from that moment to today, I haven't been able to go back to using film.