Four of my photographs are being used on the Network18 venture website http://www.in.com without my permission. The images are not hosted on the in.com servers, they are being leeched from my hosting servers. Network18 has very blatantly also provided a link back to where they have copied the images from and insouciantly mentioned “Images maybe subject to copyright.” Yes, it is stupid. Now, the CEO Haresh Chawla might not be aware of this – and he might be aware of this – in case of the latter… it’s a ridiculous business strategy. Below are the screenshots in all their glory – for posterity’s sake – and following are direct links till they get taken down : Image 01 | Image 02 | Image 03 | Image 04 – UPDATE : the images have magically disappeared! you can still see them here using Google’s cache Image 01 | Image 02 | Image 03 | Image 04. Thanks to @poeticgooner for the Google Cache hat tip.

They also sent me an email from the in.com website saying ” Thank you for your feedback. Can you please send us the link. Do let is know if the problem persists”.

Read : India’s copyright proposals are un-American (and that’s bad)

This incident was also covered on Chori.in.

Apparently, in.com uses a Bing.com API, which allows them to use keywords and then display search results on their website. While Bing.com and Google.com have my permission to include my images in their search results, in.com does not. Instead of first using and then removing after being caught, in.com should first take permission. in.com is a “content aggregator”, which means everything on that website does not belong to them [ that's my interpretation anyway - please correct me if I'm wrong ].

I’m not sure what Network18′s in.com missed – even though my website / blog clearly states “All rights reserved and copyright studioaside.com – they have gone ahead nonetheless. Shame on you Network18 and whoever made this bad decision for you. I’m sure they steal other content too – the written kind. You got a story, you share it in the comments.

Nima Chering was the child who captured our attention, our cameras and [ although we might not concede ] our hearts as well for the short time we spent at the Sanga Choeling Monastery at Pelling, Sikkim, India. We did not get a glimpse of the Khangchendzonga Mountains but we did get enraptured by Nima’s antics. The route he walks to and fro for school is the very same route where we stopped multiple times for a break to gather our breath.

Not only did Nima pose patiently, by the end of it he also succeeded in testing our patience by not giving up trying to pose some more, every opportunity he got or could wrangle from us. I just could not stop clicking the button for his face was captivating – those eyes could have burned holes.

Photographs from a vacation at Pondicherry in 2006. On my way further to Andaman & Nicobar Islands.

People in the photographs include Antoine Carrier, Shasta Leland, Patrick Linden and Kunal Udawat. The day was hot and humid. There was a tiny halfpipe, a video-camera, a Fuji Film SLR, five sweat-drenched people, a Luna, an auto-rickshaw and not much to do. Of course the beach was calling after this was done and over with. Shasta even had a cat who littered in his bed – cute kittens. I experimented some more on the beach but my Fuji was getting old.

These were shot in a moving car at night. The light streaks are from traffic lights, moving vehicles, lamp posts and other artificial light sources.

This is from my second trip to the Andaman & Nicobar Islands – specifically Havelock and Port Blair. This is one of those places I could back to repeatedly without even so much as a thought of getting bored. Lovely place, beautiful scenes and good food if you know where to go.

That is the only panorama image I could manage from the photographs I shot when I was traveling to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Clicking on it will take you to it’s Flickr page and you can see the larger version as well. Havelock Island sunset just before a boat ride that continued till midnight! The restaurant of the Barefoot Resort on Radhanagar Beach and the hills behind it on Havelock Island. Farmland leading into forest area on Havelock Island. A child on the ferry. One of the many beaches on Havelock Island. View of Ross Island while on the ferry to Port Blair. Kunal getting ready to dive into the water. View from another one of the beaches on Port Blair.

This was shot on the beach next to the Elephant Reserve on main Andaman Islands. Trees encountered between the Barefoot Resort and the Radhanagar beach on Havelock Island. Another shot on the beach next to the Elephant Reserve. Sunset from the ferry while returning to Port Blair from Havelock Island. View from beach number 6, Dolphin Yatri Niwas, Havelock Island. The ferry departing after leaving its load of passengers on Havelock Island. Moon in the sky when the ferry was pulling out from Havelock for the journey to Port Blair. On one of the beaches on Port Blair. Elephant beach on Havelock Island – good beach for viewing coral reefs. Before the Tsunami, the preferred location for viewing coral reefs was Jolly Buoy Island – but that’s gone underwater now.

These photographs were all shot on film on my Fuji SLR and the negatives were scanned and developed at a local photography studio in Bombay.