
Caption: Sixteen-year old Manjula of Jowkakakotha village, Andhra Pradesh, has finished matriculation, and hopes to study further. Her father, B. Sinappa, hanged himself on December 11, 2001. © Surya Sen
Via Sree Sreenivasan
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Antakshri, RIP.
M. Mahendra Reddy committed suicide. It was one in a spate of suicides in Andhra Pradesh.
Surya Sen works at the Centre for Science and Environment, in Delhi. He's a photographer for Down to Earth, a science and environment fortnightly published by CSE. His striking, somewhat eerie images from Andhra Pradesh have won him well-deserved accolades recently.
“Apart from portraits, there are also images which depict the distribution and sale of seeds, which of course is the costliest input in agriculture and the primary reason forcing farmers to take on more debt.”
Unable to pay this mounting debt, farmers have taken their lives. What is shocking is how pervasive this practice is in one state of India.
Tiffinbox presents Surya's work here – one image per day, over the course of the next ten days. Please come back and visit. We'll be adding captions soon so that you better understand the situation.
Adithya Sambamurthy says:
I was a college senior when I first saw the book Divided Soul, by Magnum's David Alan Harvey, who gave a presentation on his work at thePoynter Institute in St. Petersburg. Back then the images were incredible, but I must confess I wasn't quite sure I understood it. I didn't know why the book was put together the way it was. The instant recognition of the theme was not there to me in the images. So it was a treat to have the opportunity to hear the author come and speak- and show some amazing images. Harvey considers himself a hybrid between the realms of photojournalism and fine art photography, and a number of his images have appeared on the pages of National Geographic as well as on the walls of Fine Art museums.
Harvey explained how he is able to ‘sell' his images to editors, by researching his subjects thoroughly and giving images, which on the surface seem very graphic, the context they need for the story through well written captions.
“Know more about the subject than everyone else in the room,” he said. In researching his book, Divided Soul, Harvey said he was as influenced as much by the fiction coming from Spain and the Americas as he was by newspaper articles. He attributes what he referred to as the lyrical quality of his images to this influence by fiction.
Kanak Mani Dixit, 49, a respected journalist and editor of the influential progressive newsmagazine in Nepal called Himal was arrested and then released. The arrest came soon after Mr. Dixit criticized King Gyanendra. The King recently dissolved the democratically elected government on February 1. Recent events have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation towards anyone questioning his authority.
The Committee to Protect Journalists has published its condemnation of Mr. Dixit's unwarranted arrest.
What a pity that the Western press has turned a blind eye to what is happening in the only surviving Hindu kingdom on this planet. If anyone of you have read about what is going on there, please send me links to well written and thought out articles.
By the way, I tried linking to Himal magazine, but the link [http://www.himalmag.com/] appears to be dead. That's odd, but I am not surprised that it is off-line. When a repressive government chooses to curb the exchange of ideas, you can bet there is more trouble ahead. Let's hope that the Nepali people find some way to return to democracy once and for all.