Reporting, live from the battlefield

Sudarshan Raghavan, chief editor-Africa, Washington Post, reports from some of the world's most dreaded conflict zones.
Having worked in 25 troubled zones, most recently from South Sudan and Kenya, Sudarshan admits he is not a thrill-seeker. "I was not excited about being there. I'd be the first to run if we were being fired at," he said.
Ask him why he still reports from the front and he says: "I like reporting high-profile events." He added: "I've seen five of my friends lose their lives in the last five years.To me, conflict-zone reporting is about gauging the situation, analysing the policies and reporting neutrally. The adrenaline factor is not my thing. My family lives in Nairobi, about a mile away from the mall that was attacked recently." Be it dodging bullets, seeking cover from the militia or sticking to the neutral line in reportage, reporting from conflict zones has its hurdles and its highs, he says. According to him, 21st century warfare is not about power-struggles as the older world knew it. "It is about economics, ideologies and other complexities, which make handling them more difficult," he said.
Changing narrators
Bangladeshi photojournalist Shahidul Alam's body of work epitomises Gulzar's words "Your pain has passed through my pauses". Alam witnessed through his lenses his country's revolution of the mid-80s. From his symbol of the revolution - Noor Hossain (a revolutionary 'murdered' by the cops) - to his learning of how a subject in every photograph has the right to narrate his or her story, Alam kept the audience in thrall during the session 'Visual Aftermath'.
From tackling the rifts in Bangladeshi society to condemning the pseudo democracy the revolution resulted in, Alam used anecdotes of his photography of people without voices. He pointed at how he sought to challenge the way Bangladesh was painted by western photographers. "They come to see what they want to and go away with it...," he said.