CeMIS International Photo Competition 2020 “India at Work”


Factory worker, software engineer, street vendor, CEO, sex worker, artist, homemaker, manager, farmer, policewoman, professor, driver. From work at home to work in the field, the factory, the office, or the street: Show us what work is! Show us workers! Show us places of work!

The CeMIS International Photo Competition 2020 called for images that explore work in India or in the Indian Diaspora.

The Call for Photos closed on 15 September 2020. Voting closed on 16 November.

Organized by the Centre for Modern Indian Studies at the University of Göttingen, Germany.

Download the Terms & Conditions here.

Competition procedure

Our panel of experts will shortlist 25 photographs for public voting. These photographs will be published on the CeMIS Facebook page and on our website.
The voting will be publicly and open for one month.
The top 10 photographs will be elected based on the number of ‘likes’ received on Facebook. These top 10 photographs will be awarded: 1st prize with 100€, 2nd and 3rd prize with 75€, 4th to 10th prize with 50€ each.
Additionally, a Jury Prize to the value of 100€ will also be awarded. This could be any of the Top 25 photos.
The winners will be informed via email. Upon notification, winners will be required to provide a Paypal account to receive their prize money.
The following sections elaborate on the Submission Guidelines and Terms and Conditions.
Please take time and read carefully through them.


Submission Guidelines

1. Each photographer is allowed to submit a maximum of 5 photographs.
2. Submission must include full name, address, date of birth, email address, institutional affiliation (if applicable) and a caption for each photograph
3. The caption has to be submitted for each photograph including date and place the photograph was taken. Background information on the scene might be taken into consideration in the selection process. (caption limit: 70 characters max.)
Please note: the photographers name and caption will be published alongside the photos. Other personal information will only be used in conducting the contest and awarding prizes. Personal information will not be available to third parties.
4. The photos must be submitted according to the following format:
- 100px on the longest side; while short side shouldn’t be less than half of the long side
- 72 dpi
- RGB
- JPEG
- Digital adjustments only if: minor cleaning work (de-dusting), levels, curves, colour, saturation or contrast work

Terms and Conditions

By entering photos into the CeMIS International Photo Competition 2020, the submitter agrees to the following terms and conditions:
1. The submitter is the sole owner of the copyright of the submitted photos.
2. The submitter has the necessary permission from the people who appear in the photo(s).
3. The submitter grants CeMIS the irrevocable, non-exclusive and royalty-free right to use all images for non-commercial purposes in relation to the activities and the promotion of the centre in any media world-wide without prior notice. If possible, the photographer will be credited whenever the photo is published. CeMIS may cut, edit, crop or arrange the entry as it sees fit and shall be entitled to sub-license such rights to third-parties.
Should photos be used for commercial publications, this will only be done with prior written consent from the photographer.
4. Submitted photo files must fit in the specifications listed in the submission guidelines.
5. The submitter must be 18 years or older.
6. Winners will be informed via email. Upon notification, winners will be required to provide a Paypal account number to receive their prize money.
7. If the photo is selected for print exhibition, the photographer will be requested to provide a higher quality version to be printed in large format.

Interested in pursuing an MA in Modern Indian Studies at CeMIS?

The Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS) is one of the few centres in Europe and South Asia that takes an interdisciplinary approach to the study of modern India. Part of the Faculty of Humanities, the Faculty of Social Sciences, and the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Göttingen in Germany, the centre is dedicated to research and teaching about economic and political development in modern India.

CeMIS offers the international English-language Master of Arts in Modern Indian Studies. Learn more about our study program here and here. Deadline for Applications for the winter intake 2020 is 15 May 2020.
We also offer a German-language Bachelor of Arts major in Moderne Indienstudien (Modern Indian Studies). Find more info here.

The professors, research fellows and PhD students come from a range of academic disciplines including history, political science, religious science, anthropology and economic development. Researchers address issues of rapid political and economic transformation and development in the context of a linguistically, ethnically and religiously diverse democratic society, with an emphasis on India’s post-independence period, especially on the period from 1980s to the present.
Research and teaching are focused on five central interdisciplinary clusters: Metamorphoses of the Political, Religion, Inequality and Diversity, Labour and Capital in Modern India, and Media and Public Spheres. Through its research projects, CeMIS has built a rich network with colleagues at research institutions at the Göttingen Campus, and on a national and international stage.