Zafar Aafaq

SRINAGAR

Showkat Nanda
Showkat Nanda

Kashmir Life’s former staffer and award-winning Photo-Journalist, Showkat Nanda, has been selected for the prestigious Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund this year.

He is among 18 photographers, around the globe, who were selected from a list of 140 candidates to receive the grant.

Nanda worked with Kashmir Life as Assistant Editor. The list of Magnum Foundation Emergency Fund awardees appeared in Time.com on Wednesday morning.

Copy Right: Showkat Nanda
In picture: Fazzi Begum, 65. {Copy Right: Showkat Nanda}

Showkat Nanda is an award-winning Kashmiri documentary photographer whose works have appeared in The Washington Post, Aljazeera, Vogue, Columbia Missourian, Vox Magazine, The Sunday Guardian and a variety of other newspapers, magazines and books.

These eighteen photographers will receive a portion of $138,000, to continue work on under-reported issues. Each grant ranges from $4,000 to $12,000.

Nanda won Fulbright Fellowship 2012-2013 to study photojournalism in a top American university. The fellowship is awarded by the US State Department to people who demonstrate excellence in their respective fields of study.

Nanda has postgraduate in Mass Communication from MERC, University of Kashmir. He began his career from AFP in Srinagar as a trainee photographer. He has also taught photography at IUST, Awantipora and Baramulla Degree College besides he mentored Central University of Kashmir students.

Khalid Nisar: Copy Right Showkat Nanda.
Khalid Nisar: Copy Right Showkat Nanda.

In 2011, he received the “National Press Photo Award” – the most prestigious honour given for excellence in the field of photojournalism in India.

In 2015, Nanda won ‘Storytellers of Tomorrow’ competition.

His work was selected as one of the twenty ‘Storytellers of Tomorrow’ by VII Photo Agency and EyeEm. “In September this year,” wrote EyeEm on their website, “we teamed up with VII Photo Agency, one of the world’s most renowned photojournalism agencies, to discover the most talented emerging visual storytellers from the EyeEm community.”

The scree shot of TIME magazine exclusive story detailing the grant given to 18 photo-journalists across the world. (Downloaded on March 23 @ 6:30 PM)
The screenshot of TIME magazine exclusive story detailing the Magnum Emergency Fund ‘grant’ given to 18 photo-journalists across the world. (Downloaded on March 23 @ 6:30 PM)

“Over 3,000 photographers have submitted more than 12,000 photos, ranging from the in-depth documentary of the refugee crisis in Europe to stories from Georgia, Pakistan, Germany, Japan, Lebanon, Ghana, India, the Philippines and beyond,” EyeEm further wrote, “This Mission was launched in conjunction with the VII Mentor Program, a unique initiative that has mentored some of the brightest new photography talent since its start in 2008.”

Nanda was awarded for his two pictures: one of Fazzi Begum, 65, who has been waiting for her son for the past 24 years. Her 16-year-old son, Nazir Ahmad, disappeared when he went to play cricket with his friends near his house. And second: Khalid Nissar, a 12-year-old Kashmiri boy with a toy rifle.

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