International photography competition on India launched; entries invited

An international photography competition has been launched to capture perspectives of an emerging India and create an easily available resource that will be available online.

The Takshashila Institution, in collaboration with the Public Diplomacy Division (PD) of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and Hewlett-Packard (HP) has announced the launch of INDIA IMPRESSIONS.

The competition will be conducted on Flickr, a popular photo sharing platform, and adopt Creative Commons licensing to make high quality images widely available.

The best photographs will be featured in a grand photo exhibition in New Delhi and published appropriately, among other places, in MEA journals and outlets. The best entries will also receive gift hampers sponsored by MEA and HP.

Contributions are invited under four broad themes:

a) India Engages - India's relations with the world

b) India Empowers - How India is creating economic & social empowerment at home & abroad

c) India Enlightens - On knowledge and spirituality

d) India Entertains - On culture, sports and other forms of entertainment

Anyone can participate by registering at Takshashila's website. All entries must be made available under Creative Commons Attributions-ShareAlike license, usable free of charge for non-commercial purposes.

Entries can be submitted between Aug 15, 2011 to Feb 15, 2012. There is no limit to the number of photographs that a participant can submit.

Navdeep Suri, joint secretary (PD) said: "We often get messages from our diplomatic missions around the world pointing to the difficulty in accessing high quality images that show the new India. I am confident that INDIA IMPRESSIONS will plug this gap by generating photographs that capture our country's transformation and make them available to students, researchers, business and media and to anyone else interested in India."

The Takshashila Institution, a public charitable trust registered in Chennai, is an independent networked think tank on India's strategic affairs. It contributes towards building the intellectual foundations of an India that has global interests. – IANS