National Institute of Urban Affairs (NIUA), under its CITIIS program, is organising a photography competition with the purpose of depicting the impacts of sustainable and innovation-driven urban development in India through the lens of the citizen.

Entries are invited from Agartala, Amaravati, Amritsar, Bhubaneswar, Chennai, Dehradun, Hubballi-Dharwad, Kochi, Puducherry, Surat, Ujjain, and Visakhapatnam.

Shortlisted entries will be judged by a panel of renowned photographers.

Mr Raghu Rai (Chairperson of the Jury)

Ms Ketaki Sheth( Member of the Jury)

Mr Sounak Banerjee(Member of the Jury)

First prize: INR 50,000

Second prize: INR 25,000

Third prize: INR 10,000

The themes for the photography competition are as follows:

Sustainable Mobility

Dehradun and Amritsar represent the category of sustainable mobility. In Dehradun, the focus is on creating a child-friendly city.Dehradun is creating safer pedestrian paths and encouraging the use of public transport to evolve as a friendlier city for schoolchildren, the elderly and people with disabilities.Amritsar is replacing 12,000 diesel autorickshaws with e-autos to create a convenient yet sustainable public transport system, besides organising drivers in a cooperative society and offering skill training to women in their families.

Public Open Spaces

Residents of Bhubaneshwar, Agartala, Hubballi-Dharwad, Ujjain and Surat lack open spaces that can be used for recreation, cultural activities and non-motorised transport. To address this issue, Surat is reviving the wasteland along the Kankara Creek and redeveloping a stretch of 87 hectares by turning it into a biodiversity park which will preserve indigenous flora and fauna and provide the city's people with green open spaces. Bhubaneswar is revitalising assets like streets and open spaces to create green and blue corridors through the city and build healthier and active communities. Agartala is developing the Haora riverfront to strengthen its embankments, improve sanitation, facilitate non- motorised transport infrastructure, and create green open spaces for fostering biodiversity and accommodating community activities. Hubballi-Dharwad is transforming the Unkal Nala from a stormwater drain into a vibrant public utility and recreational space by creating an eco-friendly corridor for non-motorised transport, constructing retaining walls for the Nala embankment and facilitating improved sewage disposal. Lastly, Ujjain is developing interactive public spaces by upgrading existing infrastructure in and around the Mahakal Temple and Ram Ghat, restoring the Maharajwada complex, creating pedestrian access pathways and resting areas, managing traffic, and revitalising the Rudra Sagar Lake.

E-Governance and ICT

Under this category, Kochi is rolling out an e-health implementation solution in government hospitals to create a centralised digital information database and management system, and fulfil its aim of building an affordable and accessible public healthcare system.

Social and Organisational Innovation in Low-Income Settlements

The CITIIS projects in Amaravati, Chennai Visakhapatnam, and Puducherry fall under this category. Amaravati is building and retrofitting schools, Anganwadi centres, e-health sub- centres and nodal primary healthcare centres to improve the quality of life in low-income households, besides constructing a multi-faith funeral campus so people can have dignity in death. Chennai is transforming 28 corporation schools with modern digital and experiential infrastructure to improve students' learning environments and outcomes and, in turn, create inter-generational impacts for the community. Meanwhile, Visakhapatnam is upgrading 40 Greater Visakhapatnam Municipal Corporation schools with the aim of building child-friendly and universally accessible physical infrastructure, adopting smart ways of teaching, and creating more inclusive learning environments. Puducherry is working to provide wider access to affordable housing, upgrade public spaces, promote citizen participation, and improve the socio-economic conditions of people in low-income settlements.

To participate:

• Send your entries using the form. Provide a caption and brief description explaining what your photograph depicts and how it represents the CITIIS theme you have selected.
• Specifying the city where the photo has been taken is mandatory.
• You can send a maximum of three entries across the themes.

Competition rules:

• The photograph/s must be from the 12 cities under the CITIIS program, as mentioned above.
• Participation is open to individuals only (amateurs and professionals).
• The files should be in JPG format.
• For good image quality and fast upload, your image files should be less than 20MB each, and sized around 2000 pixels on the longest side.
• No watermarks/logos/names are allowed on the image.
• Heavy manipulation of images, like adding or removing objects, are prohibited. However, standard photographic tuning like adjusting contrast, saturation, cropping, etc. is permitted.
• Techniques that add, relocate, replace or remove any element of the original image, except by cropping, are not permitted. The only allowable adjustments are removal of dust or digital noise, restoration of the appearance of the original scene, and complete conversion to black and white. Other derivations, including infrared, are not permitted.
• The prize money will be transferred to Indian bank accounts only.

Terms and conditions:

By entering the competition you hereby accept these terms and conditions.

• Submitted photographs may be included in the future in gallery exhibitions and/or screenings and projections at arts institutions and festivals worldwide. We will always notify the owner of the photograph before such an inclusion is made. Each photographer retains copyright of his or her images, and proper credit lines will be attributed to each photographer when exhibited or screened anywhere by us.
• The jury's decision is final and may not be contested. They reserve the right, in its sole discretion, to disqualify and remove any photograph that does not comply with the following requirements. In case of any dispute with regard to entry and selection, the decision of the jury shall be final.
• To the best of your knowledge, the photographs do not contain any infringing, threatening, false, misleading, abusive, harassing, libellous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, scandalous, inflammatory, pornographic or profane content.
• To the best of your knowledge, the photographs do not contain any material that could constitute or encourage conduct which would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any law.
• The photograph does not infringe upon the copyrights, trademarks, contract rights, or any other intellectual property rights of any third person or entity, or violate any person's rights of privacy or publicity, and your photograph does not include:
  (i) trademarks owned by third parties.
  (ii) copyrighted materials owned by third parties.
  (iii) entries in which you have purchased or secured the rights to use stock images.
  The shortlisted status of any candidate is liable to be cancelled in case any copyright discrepancies are found at any stage either before or after selection.
• You agree to fully indemnify us in respect of all royalties, fees and any other monies owing to any person by reason of your breaching any of the foregoing.
• All entrants agree that all photograph(s) submitted to the competition may be reproduced (with photographer copyright credit) and used to conduct and promote our competitions. You hereby grant us with a right to use submitted photographs in the framework of such promotional activities.
• You acknowledge that we and our event partners assume no responsibility and are not liable for any image misuse.
• You agree to participate in related publicity and to the use of your name and winning images for the purposes of advertising, promotion and publicity for us and the competition without additional compensation. Such requests will not be unreasonably withheld.

Last date of sending entries: 26th August 2022

Submit your entries here: