4 Dec :Shri Guntaka Gopala Reddy from Vijayawada has got the first Prize in the National Photo Competition organized by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in collaboration with the Photo Division, Ministry of Information & Broadcasting on the theme of ‘Tribal: Forest Dwellers’ for his photograph “Old Bonda”. Second Prize has been bagged by Shri Girish J. Kingar of Indore for his photograph “Foodmaker”.
Saikat Mukherjee bagged the third Prize. First prize carries an award of Rupees Twenty five thousand cash and a citation. Second and third prizes carry Rupees fifteen thousand and Rupees Ten thousand respectively along with a citation each. Besides, 10 commendation prizes of Rupees Two thousand were also awarded. The Jury could, however, not find any entry for the Special Talent Award for the best Tribal Photographer which carries an award of Rupees Twenty thousand.
A total of 1165 photographs were received from the 191 photographers from 25 States including the states of north east like Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland and Sikkim and the other states like Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chandigarh, Chattishgarh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, New Delhi, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal.
A Jury comprising Shri Gautam Buddha Mukherjee, Secretary, Tribal Affairs, and an eminent tribal photographer Shri Michael Shylla and Shri Debatosh Sengupta, Director, Photo Division screened all the entries and selected the award winning photographs including 10 commendation awards and another ninety four photographs for the exhibition. Commendation awards winners are S/Shri Somenath Mukherjee from Birbhum, Chinmoy Bhattacharjee, Jayanta Roy and Biswajit Ray from West Bengal, Vanam Paparao from Vijayawada, Gurudas Dua, Subandhu Dube, Pravin Rawat and Pulkit Rawat from Indore and Ravi Shrivas from Bhopal.