Santosh Basak (1930) took his first news picture for the Calcutta news paper The Statesman, when in October 1959 a severe cholera and smallpox epidemic struck his home town of Davva, and hundres of people were dying daily. His photos were used worldwide and Basak immediately became a stringer for The Associated Press. In late 1960, Basak became an editor at The Statesman in Calcutta. He also photographed major news events in eastern India, including political violence, food riots, famine, cyclones, and Maoist Naxalite activities. In March 1971, when the Bangladesh declared itself independent from Pakistan, he photographed the day-to-day developments around the Indian-East Pakistani border.
