MSNBC.com has compiled a list of organizations you can approach to offer your financial contribution. Every dollar counts. Please give liberally.

Via Sree Sreenivasan

With so much carnage spread across several countries, after the 9.0 earthquake and the resulting tsunami, my head is set on spin mode and is about to explode. Thankfully, Saheli has it all together on her blog. It's a great resource for information about how to help.

The earthquake and the tsunamis have caused the death of at least 20,000 people and devastated some of the most beautiful spots on this planet. Please make a donation, however small. We can work together to bring some semblance of sanity to our fractured lives.

Via Shahidul Alam

As we watch in horror at the scale of the event, several things come to mind. How events a thousand miles away can affect our lives in so many ways. How connected we are in our joys and our sorrow. I realise that Bangladesh was not as badly affected as our neighbours, and that we should take pride in our achievements, but Bangladeshi newspapers today gloated over the victory of the Bangladeshi cricket team over India in their headlines! While I fret over the fact that the media plays on the negative, to downplay a disaster of such proportions in favour of a cricket match said a lot about our sense of proportions. In 1991, when nearly a million people had gathered to demand the trial of a war criminal, the government had chosen to ignore the news and mentioned instead the man of the match in a cricket game in Shunamganj. I had hoped a free media would play a more responsible role.

As I watch BBC and CNN interview British and German tourists, and the director of Oxfam from her office in Oxford, I remember my experiences in the 1991 cyclone where one hundred and twenty thousand people died in Bangladesh. As I stumbled through the debris, trying to get a sense of what had happened on the night of the 29th April 2001, I kept asking “What happened that night?” The aid workers told me of the number of bags of wheat they had distributed. The government officials quoted the figure in dollars that would be needed for reconstruction, the engineers spoke of the force of the wind.

A young woman in Sandweep looked at me and said “The land became a sea, and the sea became a wave”.

I try to imagine the tsunamis hitting the coasts of India, and Sri Lanka and Indonesia, and remember her words. The thousands whose lives have been wrecked by the earthquake do not constitute the ‘experts' that the media consider worth asking.

Shahidul Alam
27th December 2004
Dhaka

Need an injection of inspiration? Polaroid's Portfolio Gallery has gobs of it.

Polaroid has announced the winners of the 5th International Awards.

There are links to the first four contests as well. In this day and age of digital, all awe inspiring.

One gripe and it's a big one – why can't one enlarge these images to see what they really look like? The postage stamps are perhaps meant to deter swiping them, but gee whiz, drop a watermark or something and be done with it.

Pop Quiz is a new interactive learning experience from Nikon and Popular Photography & Imaging where you'll receive lessons and assignments from some of the world's top shooters. After each lesson, submit your assignment and you'll have the opportunity to join a Nikon professional photographer on an exciting photo shoot!

In this first salvo, students and photography buffs can learn about lighting. Don't forget to submit your work. Deadline is January 7, 2005 for this first quiz.

Be aware, though, that the work you submit may inevitably become the property of either Nikon or Popular Photography & Imaging magazine. Read the fine print please.

Surya Sen has been recognized at the 2004 Ramnath Goenka India Press Photo Awards, in the General News Single category.

Instituted by The Indian Express Group as part of the birth centenary celebrations of its founder, Ramnath Goenka, the India Press Photo Awards attracted 2,795 entries from across India, from regional newspapers and English-language national newsmagazines, from agency regulars, sports photographers, conflict-zone junkies.

CAPTION: Sarita's former husband M. Mahendra Reddy drank pesticide and died, leaving behind a pregnant wife and a two-year old daughter. Photography © Surya Sen

Expect to see more of Sen's work here in the next couple of days.

Writer, photojournalist and blogger, Joshua Newtown has won the 2004 Luis Valtueña International Humanitarian Photography Award.

His photograph of a Chamar Dalit woman falling into frenzy at a prayer session in an Uttar Pradesh village was chosen for the Special Prize under the category of ‘Women and new slavery’. He will receive Euros 1500 (Rs. 78,000 approx) and a citation. The award is instituted by global humanitarian organisation Médicos del Mundo based in Madrid, Spain.

A former freelancer with Associated Press and Blitz Weekly, Newton has reported for over fifty print and web publications around the world. He runs a popular blog-column called REPORTAGE.

Newton will attend the awards ceremony in Madrid on January 25, 2005. An exhibition of award-winning photographs will tour European countries for the next two years. Interested in submitting your work for this competition? Click here to download the PDF.