London: An Indian photographer has emerged as the South Asia Regional Winner of the Commonwealth Photographic Awards 2004 and pictures of three others have been chosen in the category of 'highly recommended'.

Ashima Narain of Mumbai was chosen for his photograph of young wrestlers at the national Akhara Kushti (Indian style wrestling) tournament, held in Mumbai in 2003. It represents the resilience of youth, and its ability to confront the world on its own terms.

Announcing the awards last night (Sep 2, 2004), Lindsay Ross, Executive Director of the Commonwealth Press Union said Abigail Hadeed, a Trinidadian, bagged the first prize and a cash of 2000 Pounds.

Entries of three other Indian photographers have been chosen from South Asia in the category of 'highly recommended' with three more emerging as runners up.

Photographs of Bijoy Choudhury, Santosh Kumar Jana and Joydip Mitra, all from India, were chosen in the highly recommended category (from South Asia) while Subir Halder, Swapan Mahapatra, Srikanth K Sridhar, all from India, were chosen as Runners up in the same category.

The regional winners will get 250 Pounds and the runners up 100 Pounds each.