Tag Archives: poverty

THE OBLIGATIONS OF A PHOTOJOURNALIST

Attempting to specify where photojournalism ends and art begins is a pretty pointless task. But in the case of Norfolk, I raise the issue because later in the Radio 4 interview, by explaining his approach to photography, Norfolk seemed to perfectly define the merit of photojournalism – as oppose to art – and the obligations that are incumbent upon all of us lucky enough to have been brought up in the Developed World but who work in much poorer countries.

THE SAD STORY OF DHANGA BAIGA

Dhanga’s is not an isolated case. Thirty-three percent of Indians are underweight with a BMI (Body Mass Index) below 18.5 which, Dr Binayak Sen says amounts to a “genocide without bullets”. Sen, a public-health activist and advisor to the JSS, currently resides in prison, serving a life sentence on false charges of sedition. Sen’s real crime has been to expose the Chhattisgarh state government’s appalling failure to represent the interests of those to whom it was elected to serve: ordinary people like Dhanga Baiga.…

FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE FEATURES INDIA MINING STORY

Jason Mikian is a researcher with the Peace Research Institute in Oslo and, together with award-winning journalist Scott Carney, he has just published an article on Indian mining in Foreign Policy Magazine. Miklian and Carney’s story documents the shocking conditions forced upon local people in the name of progress and development in both Jharkhand and the neighbouring state of Chhattisgarh.The published article features a few of my photographs too.…

THE REALITY OF MINING IN INDIA

According to Sahay then, I should have come across a lot of enthusiasm and hope among this population who either directly or indirectly [depend] on the Bokaro Steel Plant for a living. But I didn’t. Instead I photographed a poor and dejected community, eking out a living on the fringes of a mine that employes few local residents. I saw women collecting coal as lumps of it toppled from the huge trucks exiting the mines. Close by, families living in grotty hovels, were selling plastic bottles of petrol to passing motor vehicles. This was trickle down economics at work, honouring those who’ve been forced to sacrifice their land in the name of growth.…