govindamma-velu-still-catching-prawns-at-77

Chennai District, Tamil Nadu

Oct 28, 2022

Govindamma Velu: still catching prawns at 77

In Chennai’s Buckingham Canal, Govindamma Velu swims and dives for a living. It's the only job she says she can do

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Author

M. Palani Kumar

M. Palani Kumar is Staff Photographer at People's Archive of Rural India. He is interested in documenting the lives of working-class women and marginalised people. Palani has received the Amplify grant in 2021, and Samyak Drishti and Photo South Asia Grant in 2020. He received the first Dayanita Singh-PARI Documentary Photography Award in 2022. Palani was also the cinematographer of ‘Kakoos' (Toilet), a Tamil-language documentary exposing the practice of manual scavenging in Tamil Nadu.

Text Editor

Vishaka George

Vishaka George worked as a Senior Editor at PARI and reported on livelihoods and environmental issues. Vishaka was the head PARI's Social Media functions (2017-2025) and worked in the Education team to take PARI's stories into the classroom and get students to document issues around them.