The India Press Photo Awards instituted by The Ramnath Goenka Foundation are an initiative to identify, promote and reward excellence in photojournalism and documentary photography. This year, the ceremony will be held on December 15 at Express Towers, Nariman Point.

This year, the top honour, The Ramnath Goenka Picture of the Year Award, has been bagged by Vipin Pawar of DNA for his evocative picture of the Gateway of India stabbing incident. He will receive a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.

The winner in Spot News category is Amit Dave from Reuters, while Aziz Bhutta of Rajasthan Patrika stood first in the General News category.

Manish Swaroop of Associated Press wins in the Daily Life category, even as Altaf Qadri of the European Press Agency wins in the Sports Action and Feature category. All 12 winners will receive a cash prize of Rs 50,000 and a trophy each.

This apart, there are 11 who have been named for an Honourable Mention. All winning photos will be displayed at the Express Gallery.

The first IPP awards function was held in December 2004 and since then it has become an annual platform for photographers to display their best work in constantly evolving categories of photo journalism.

While photojournalists in India once saw their job as a source of livelihood, today they understand their social, political and moral responsibilities as professional lensmen.

However, the Indian photojournalism scenario has been plagued by lack of opportunity to showcase and recognize talent, lack of motivation and international exposure.

Hence the IPP Awards. This year, there were over 4,700 entries. These were in several categories—spot news, general news, daily life, people in the news, arts and entertainment, sports, nature and environment, contemporary issues, advertising photography and international photographer covering India.

This year’s panel of judges included Devika Daulat Singh, director of photography at PhotoInk, New Delhi, Pablo Bartholomew, a photojournalist and documentary photographer with Gamma-Liaison Photo News Agency, New York and Prashant Panjiar, who works with Time magazine and runs his own photo agency.

“The number of entries has gone up dramatically this year, as is bound to happen with the contest getting more popular. But I think the bar hasn’t significantly risen,” said Panjiar.

The judges went through every image—subjects ranged from the strife in Kashmir to people hit by the tsunami to newsmakers like Amitabh Bachchan and Bal Thackeray—narrowing down selections through various rounds. The photographers remained anonymous all through the selection process.

Swapan Parekh who was on the IPP jury last year and on the World Press Photo jury in 2004 and 2005 says, “What makes sense is to see how things are moving forward. The long-term goal of these awards is that it reaches a level when we’re not just seeing things in our own backyard. It’s a slow process, but can happen if standards stay high. Like journalism, the awards are just a validation of good work after you’ve done it.”

With the credibility of the media challenged time and again, we are still able to identify brave men and women who continue to report events as they are. The IPP Awards are dedicated to them.

(India Press Photo Awards is brought to you by The Indian Express with the support of Canon as associate sponsor and exchange4media as the online media partner)

2006 WINNERS

Vipin Pawar (DNA): RNG Picture of The Year Award

Amit Dave (Reuters): Spot News

Aziz Bhutta (Rajasthan Patrika): General News

Rafiq Maqbool (AP): General News Story

Altaf Qadri (EPA): Sports Action and Feature

Prashant Nadkar (The Indian Express):

People in News

Yasin Dar (Freelance): People in News Story

Ashima Narain (Freelance): Nature & Environment

Manish Swaroop (AP): Daily Life

Sohrab Hura (Freelance): Daily Life Story

Mahendra Parikh (The Indian Express):

Art & Entertainment

Arvind Jain (The Week): Contemporary Issues

Samkit Shah (Freelance): Contemporary Issues Story