Drik Picture Library was set up by Bangladeshi writer and photographer Shahidul Alam and Bangladeshi writer and anthropologist Rahnuma Ahmed that has been awarded a grant by the Prince Claus Fund. The agency was set up in 1989 to provide a platform for local photographers in the majority world. Drik is Sanskrit for vision. Drik has gone on to provide media services that include web development, video production, print production and exhibitions. In 1998 it set up Pathshala, the South Asian Institute of Photography, and Chobi Mela, the first festival of photography in Asia. Drik uses new media extensively in its activism and introduced email to Bangladesh in the early nineties. It also set up Banglarights, the Bangladesh Human Rights Network, and DrikNEWS, independent news that extensively uses citizen journalism. Drik has also set up Majority World, an unprecedented photo library and agency set up to promote the work of photographers from the Global South and to promote Fair Trade Photography. It is headquartered in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, but also has branch offices in India and the UK.
Pathshala South Asian Media Institute
Pathshala, the South Asian Media Institute was set up in 1998 by the Bangladesh photographer, writer and activist Shahidul Alam, as "Pathshala South Asian Institute of Photography". It is affiliated to Sunderland University and Bolton University in the UK; Oslo University College in Norway; Edith Cowan University in Australia; and The Danish School of Media and Journalism. It provides a Bachelors degree in photography which is, however, not recognised by the University Grants Commission or National University Affiliation with the country's oldest university, Dhaka University, is in process. The school has however received death threats by fundamentalists claiming photography is un-Islamic. Students have been active in social movements and have organised exhibitions addressing social concerns at overseas events. Pathshala, after consultations with international and local experts and local stakeholders, has now been set up as a media academy, to help strengthen other fields of media.
Students
Student awards have included first prize in World Press Photo Contest, The National GeographicAll Roads Awards, and the Prix Pictet. Several students have made it to the Photo District News' 'PDN's 30 2008' Alumna Taslima Akhter has won several awards, including the Best Photographer Award from the 5th Dali International Photography Exhibition in China. Since 2002, Pathshala alumni GMB Akash, Munem Wasif, Andrew Biraj, Prito Reza, Sarker Protick and Saiful Huq Omi have been selected for the Joop Swart Masterclass run by World Press Photo. Pathshala alumni Khaled Hasan and Saiful Huq Omi have won the National Geographic All Roads Awards, while alumni Munem Wasif received the Prix Pictet Commission on "Water".
