Staff Reporter : The Business Standard’s Chattogram Bureau Chief Shamsuddin Illius was awarded the United States-based World Press Institute (WPI) fellowship.
The World Press Institute (WPI) will hold its 57th annual journalism fellowship program this year and has invited nine journalists from Argentina, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, China (Hong Kong), Finland, Germany, India, Iran, and Nigeria to participate in the program.
The themes that the fellows of the 2022 program will investigate include issues of racial equity and police reform, nuclear threats and security, the upcoming U.S. Congressional elections, and new business models for journalism in the digital age.
The program will run from March 18 through May 21, 2022. The fellows will spend these nine weeks examining the free press and media innovations and learning about America’s social and cultural diversity and its political system.
Illius has been working as the Bureau Chief Chittagong at The Business Standard since 2019. Earlier, he worked as the In-charge of the Chittagong bureau at The Independent.
Illius is working as a stringer at Agence France-Presse (AFP) and contributing to The Third Pole. His work has appeared at The Independent, The Business Standard, The Third Pole, The Scotsman, AFP, Scroll. in, and more.
He has covered so many issues relating to crime, the environment, climate change, business, refugees, migration, and human trafficking. Many of his articles on climate change and environmental issues, refugees, migration, and human rights got huge coverage and stirred up the readers.
He covered two Rohingya influxes from the Bangladesh-Myanmar border in 2016 and 2017 and witnessed Rohingya refugees fleeing persecution in Myanmar to safety in Bangladesh.
One of his reports titled, Cops ‘label’ teenage boy as sister’s violator’ ensured justice for a poor family. The report was treated as a First Information Report (FIR) by the High Court of Bangladesh following a writ petition by a Supreme Court lawyer. This was the first time an apex court treated a newspaper report as an FIR in the country.
A fellowship from the Earth Journalism Network and the Stanley Center for Peace and Security allowed him to cover the 26th UN Conference of the Parties on Climate Change in Glasgow in 2021. He is a fellow of the Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU) Journalism Fellowship Scheme 2018. At Hong Kong Baptist University, Illius conducted journalistic research on Rohingya Refugee children titled “Stateless tag, undocumented birth of Rohingya children in Bangladesh and role of ASEAN.”
Illius is a story grant fellow of Earth Journalism Network (EJN)—Reporting on Zoonotic Diseases and One Health in the Asia-Pacific Region 2021, Reporting on Biodiversity Story Grants 2020, and Reporting on Climate Change Adaptation in the Bay of Bengal 2019.
He is also an alumnus of the Thomson Reuters Foundation – Reporting on Migration. He completed a short course on Refugee and Advocacy from Jain University, Bangalore, India.
He has done a multimedia story jointly with a US journalist supported by Pulitzer Center. The 10-min story showed climate migrants struggle for an alternative livelihood.
They will spend the first three weeks in Minnesota, based at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, with visits to Grand Marais in the northern part of the state and farming communities in the southern part of the state.
The fellows will then travel around the U.S. for five weeks, meeting with journalists, policy experts, and political, business, and community leaders. They will visit New York City, Washington D.C., Miami, Austin (Texas), Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles before returning to Minnesota for the final week of the program.
Illius completed his graduation and post-graduation in English Language and Literature. He was born at Nischintapur village of Nangalkot upazilla in Cumilla district.
