Photo essays

Colourful Challenges: Street Art from the Middle East The author looks at Street Art in the Middle East (Libya, Egypt, Lebanon, Iran and Palestine). He draws attention to how in some parts it became an apparent means for protest, while in others it is more widely used to endorse the current regime. By Dallin Van Leuven, 13th October, 2013 The Arab Spring brought far more than a change of leadership to nations in the Middle East and North Africa. Its political upheaval introduced a marked increase in the freedom of speech, as well as a challenge to the definition of public space. At the intersection of these two currents lies street art. Street art – rather than graffiti – is an appropriate term, with vibrant, poignant expressions of free speech capturing the attention of both residents and passers-by. But this was not always the case. Although it was already a common tool of resistance in Gaza and the West Bank, it gave new revolutionary artists in Arab states a medium to reach the masses and further an ideal. Emboldened by popular protests, street art erupted upon streets and squares across the region, invading the public sphere with defiant ...
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An Attempt to Discover India – Chapter 1 InPEC presents to you the “Discovery of India” log of Karthik Radhakrishnan, an engineering graduate student from the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, as he travels through India. In this post, he presents the story about a village in India which “has been forgotten by both the political and administrative executive of the country.” Chapter 2 is available here. Chapter 3 is available here Place : Aalapalayam (50km North of Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu) Date : 25th June, 2013 By Karthik Radhakrishnan, 10th July, 2013 (republished) In the past few months, I have often asked myself the question “What do I consider to be a privilege in my life?” The answer seemed to be obvious “food, shelter and education.” Now that I think about it, this might have been a very shallow response from a guy sitting inside an AC room, oblivious to the actual hardships of the world. How about eating your food without the stench of an exposed drainage that runs around your house? How about a house whose roof falls on your head with every rainfall? How about the absence of an avenue to dispose your dead ...
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Photoessay: 2013 Kumbh Mela, India InPEC presents a photo essay of the “Kumbh Mela” at Allahabad in India by Hemley Gonzalez, a Cuban-American activist who runs ‘Responsible Charity’ in the city of Kolkata. Find more about Responsible Charity here and feel free to donate here. You can also get regular updates on their Facebook page. By Hemley Gonzalez, 21st February, 2013 The Kumbh Mela is a Hindu religious pilgrimage that takes place every twelve years at one of four places: Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik in India. More than 100 million people are to attend the 2013 Kumbha mela. The major event of the festival is ritual bathing at the banks of the Ganga river. Other activities include religious discussions, devotional singing, mass feeding of holy men and women and the poor, and religious assemblies where doctrines are debated and standardized. Kumbh Mela is the most sacred of all the pilgrimages. Thousands of holy men and women attend, and the auspiciousness of the festival is in part attributable to this. The sadhus are seen clad in saffron sheets with Vibhuti ashes dabbed on their skin as per the requirements of ancient traditions. Some, called naga sanyasis, may not ...
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