Thiruvananthapuram: International honour for TOI photojournalist

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Rakesh Nair, principal photographer of The Times of India’s Thiruvananthapuram bureau, has won the Covid-19 Big Picture Award instituted by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, in association with Omidyar Network.
Rakesh’s photograph, ‘Rest in peace’, published in TOI’s August 15 edition, portrayed the city corporation’s cleaning workers paying their last respects to a Covid-19 victim at Shantikavadom, the civic body-run crematorium.

Of the over 500 entries received from 91 countries, the Foundation-constituted panel shortlisted 14 photographs, before announcing three winners. Wara Vargas (Bolivia) and Mohammad Rakibul Hasan (Bangladesh) are the other two winners the Foundation announced on Wednesday.
A panel of judges, comprising the CEOs of the Thomson Reuters Foundation and Omidyar Network, as well as three professional photographers, Mike McCoy, Lynsey Weatherspoon and L Kasimu Harris, selected the winning photographs that “shed light on the stories of ordinary people living in extraordinary times, and bring into sharp focus the human impact of Covid-19 in its myriad forms.”
Rakesh, a post-graduate in broadcast journalism, has been with TOI since 2011.