When Dr. Nayana Patel arrives to her clinic in the mornings, the lobby is full of women. Some wear brightly coloured saris, others are in western dress. They are either desperately seeking a baby or hoping to lift themselves out of poverty and offer their own children a better life. Beginning with a few surrogacies in 2003, Patel’s Akanksha clinic in the industrial state of Gujarat now delivers over 100 surrogate babies a year.
Commercial surrogacy remains controversial and is banned in many countries. But in, a socially conservative society, surrogacy has thrived since the supreme high-court legalised the practice in 2002. A report by the Confederation of Indian Industry estimates the practice will generate $2.3 billion a year by 2012. Read more at
Suzanne Lee is a professional documentary photographer and videographer living between India and Malaysia while working on photography and multimedia projects across Asia.
In 2007, for the first time in history, the world’s population was more urban than rural. At the same time, one out of three city dwellers – one billion people around the world – lives in a slum. Where we live matters. Our place of residence determines if we have access to basic rights and services, if we are employable, even if we are fully human in the eyes of the society.
Where we live matters focuses on the residents of the Paga Hill slum, one of the oldest neighbourhoods in Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. On 12 May 2012, some one hundred police officers armed with assault rifles and machetes descended on the slopes of the Paga Hill to demolish the slum and drive out its residents. This forced eviction was carried out to make room for Paga Hill Estates, an exclusive residential development project that would overlook the waters of the scenic Port Moresby bay.
Philippe-Schneider
I started this project to challenge the viewer’s perception of slum dwellers and to highlight the critical truth that, in whatever conditions people live, they all have the same basic needs, hopes and fears. I wanted to expose human faces of the Paga Hill slum residents, showing their personal stories rather than leaving them relegated to statistics, stigma and prejudice.
Philippe Schneider – born in France in May, 1967. After dabbling in student activism whilst completing a Bachelor of Arts and Communication at university, Philippe found his calling as a Humanitarian Aid Worker. He has been exposed to the spectrum of human existence whilst working in Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine and Darfur. Philippe believes that the commentary of human experience can ideally be shared through the medium of photography and strives to create work that informs the social conscience. www.fotovisura.com/user/schneiderphil
I was in Nepal exactly six years and three days before the earthquake that devastated the country on Saturday. I was resting for a few moments at the end of a narrow alleyway when these two sisters appeared, swinging their satchels and giggling to each other as they made their leisurely way home after school. I returned to Nepal this week under far less pleasing circumstances. Saturday’s earthquake has ripped the country apart. Purely by coincidence, I found myself in Bhaktapur again and at the end of very same alleyway where the two schoolgirls had appeared six years before. It’s the same street but, as you can see, so very different now.
Gavin Gough
With a couple of hours free at the end of today’s assignment and with copies of these photos on my phone, I took a detour to Bhaktapur, intending to search for the two sisters. A fool’s errand perhaps.
I’m pleased to report that I found them, both alive and well. ( by Gavin Gough)
Gavin Gough is a freelance photographer based in Bangkok, Thailand. He works on assignment and is represented by Getty Images and 4Corners. You can find his work on his website, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. A selection of his 2015 Nepal earthquake coverage can be found here.
Wout de Jong was travelling with his partner when the earthquake struck. They were near the town of Bandipur, about 80km outside Kathmandu. „We are a Dutch couple traveling in Nepal. We we were just outside a big cave just outside of Bandipur when everything started rumbling. The shaking became unreal and went on for such a long time. When we got back to the village over 20 houses were down and people were panicing with every aftershock. Screaming and running out of their houses. Our guesthouse wall was out and our beds full of bricks and rubble. Right now people here sleep outside in tents close to bonfires. Mostly the poor people have been struck by the earthquake with their badly build houses reduced to rubble. Some tourists took it up themselves to help where they can but it’s still dangerous and some buildings still go down due to aftershocks. So far we don’t know what the conditions of the roads are and are suggested to stay where we are until the minor shocks calm down.“ ( Sent via guardian witness By Wout De Jong, 27 April 2015, 10:56)
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