Vipin Pawar wins prize for 'picture of the year'

Mumbai, Dec 15 (UNI) The second Ramnath Goenka India press photo award 2006 for the category of 'picture of the year' was given to Vipin Pawar of DNA at a function held here today.

The award was given at the hands of Shiv Sena executive president Uddhav Thackeray. The Indian Express Editor-in-chief Shekhar Gupta and Loksatta Editor Kumar Ketkar were present on the occasion. The award carries a prize money of Rs one lakh.

Speaking on the occasion Mr Thackeray, who himself is a photographer said being a photographer he was happy to be invited for the function.

Earlier, Mr Thackeray visited the World press photo exhibition and complimented the work of various photographers.

Mr Gupta in his speech said photographer has to choose the master movement complimenting the news which could be a proof of the news.

The other photographers who were given the awards of Rs 50,000 , their publications and the categories are as follows : Amit Dave (Reuters) - Spot News, Aziz Bhutta (Rajasthan Patrika) - general news, Rafiq Maqbool (Associated Press), Altaf Quadri (European press photo agency) - sports action feature; Prashant Nadkar (The Indian Express) - People in news, Yasin Dar (Freelance photographer) - people in the news story, Ashima Narain (Freelance photographer) - Nature and environment, Manish Swarup (The Associated Press) - daily life, Sohrab Hura (Freelance photographer) - daily life story, Mahendra Parikh (The Indian Express) - arts and entertainment, Arvind Jain (The Week) - contemporary issues, Samkit Shan (Freelance photographer) - contemporary issues story.

Ten photographs were selected for the 'honourable mention' category out of which two were of Vipin Pawar of DNA in the category of spot news and spot news story.

The other eight photographers, their publications and category is as follows: Mahendra Parikh and Neeraj Priyadarshi (The Indian Express), general news and sports action feature story respectively.

Ramesh Nair (DNA) - sports action feature, Altaf Qadri (EPPA) people in news, Sudipto Das (The Times of India) - nature&environment, Manish Swarup (AP) - daily life story, Amit Chakravarthy, Himanshu Vyas (Hindustan Times) for the categories arts&entertainment and contemporary issues.

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