We receive several messages each month asking how writing, illustrations and audio/video content can be submitted to India Together (IT). This page lists a few important things for you to remember, if you are considering submitting material to us. Please look through this carefully; we are not able to respond to those who simply submit their resumes, or send generic email addressed to several editors at the same time.

1. Your interest in India Together: Please introduce yourself and your interest in the material you are submitting. Also include some background on the material if it is not entirely self-explanatory. Submit a brief resume that includes all the following information: (a) your current occupation, (b) current employer's name and address unless self-employed or freelancing, (c) if you or your organisation are funded through grants/fellowships/donations, names of organisations providing funds this year, and (d) your current contact information. Remember to include references, so that we can contact people who know your work. We discourage authors from using pseudonyms.

   Personal information: India Together provides a non-discriminatory environment for your work. In your resume, it is not necessary to include any information that you consider personal.

2. We prefer new interests and perspectives: We receive many queries about writing opportunities. We work with a small group of writers, and prefer to maintain long-term relationships with them. Therefore, rather than ask us how you can become a regular contributor to India Together, do spend a little time asking yourself how your contribution will be different from the existing range of content on the site. Differentiation can come by way of new interests and ideas as well as differing emphasis and style on current topics.

   We also make a significant distinction between news reporting and opinion. While we will consider reports from journalists and interested writers, we restrict the guest opinion pages to those who have gained some authority in the topics they wish to write about. Although many writers may have interesting opinions, it is additionally important that they also have the expertise to defend questions relating to their opinions.

3. Regular versus occasional writing: Please indicate whether you are interested in regularly writing for India Together, or if your submission should be considered occasional/one-time. We have different ways of evaluating the two, and we will therefore seek this clarification from all new authors.

   If you wish to write regularly for India Together, then you must allow us the opportunity to judge how good as well as reliable your contributions will be. Over a two-month trial period, we will usually require two submissions from you. This allows us to evaluate your abilities, and your interest in the sort of material that we regularly publish. We will also use this time to decide if your submissions are timely, and whether you are responsive to issues that come up during or after publication.

4. Follow up on reader questions: We expect our authors to respond to reasonable questions from readers seeking information or clarification. When such correspondence occurs online, we ask that authors cc:India Together, so that we may follow conversations and/or provide additional input. We believe that author-reader engagement is fruitful for both citizenship as well as to improve the quality of reporting and commentary on India Together.

5. Submitting your work:

   • Format: Unless it is absolutely unavoidable please submit your material in the broadest possible format. We recommend TEXT format for written material and WAV/CD for audio files. We can work with other kinds of submissions, but in some cases we may not have the software to view your submissions cleanly. Adhering to the recommended format will also speed up the process of evaluating your work. Email your submissions to indiatogether@oorvani.in.

   • Style/English: Articles must be submitted in Indian-English; please ensure this dictionary setting in the software you use for your writing from all our writers. If this setting is not available in your word processor, use UK English as an alternate.

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6. Payments:

   • Occasional/One-time submissions: We are unable to pay for occasional or one-time articles. Occasionally, we may invite an article from an author ourselves, and in such cases, we may make an exception. Under normal circumstances, however, we are able to pay only those writers who are regulars.

   • Regular writers: Those who write regularly in IT are paid based on a number of factors. Some of our funding comes from topic-specific support for journalism fellowships, and these have their own terms. In other cases, based on the reader support we have, we will offer specific terms to authors. These are both quite variable from one year to the next.

   • No privacy of payment information: As part of our open-book accounting, India Together may choose to disclose the amounts paid to any author in our quarterly or annual financial statements published online.

   • Right to withhold publication: Once contracted, we will honour our financial obligations to you during the contracted period, but there is no expectation given that your material will be published. The right to publish rests exclusively with India Together.

   • Fairness in compensation: India Together agrees to provide comparable pay for substantially similar work. While we may reward experience and skill, we agree not to consider age or gender in making decisions about pay.

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7. Exclusive material, and republications: In submitting an article you must indicate clearly whether you wish your material to be published exclusively on India Together, or if it has already been submitted/accepted for publication elsewhere. If you intend to try to publish the material elsewhere after you submit it to us, indicate that too.

   Once India Together has contracted to pay for and publish an original item, the content provider (CP) must immediately embargo the 'original' publication of that item by all those publishers to whom the CP may have simultaneously submitted it. If one or more other publishers still want to publish the item, a citation for original publication must be made to the first publisher - India Together, with URL www.indiatogether.org. If the other publisher goes ahead and publishes without a citation, the CP is in default. If the payment has been made, a credit of one item will be applied in favour of IT. If not, payment for that particular item will stand cancelled.

8. Copyrights and Republication: Our position on copyrights is designed to protect the intellectual and informative value of the content on the website, and also recognize its core purpose - namely, to advance the public interest in a healthy manner. We respect authors' professional and livelihood concerns, as well as their right to create and offer content profitably. Please read through these carefully.

   • Ownership: Material that is paid for, or published exclusively, by India Together becomes the intellectual property of IT. However, in most cases, authors can seek and obtain joint ownership of copyright along with India Together.

   • Permission to republish: Authors must refer all requests for republication to India Together, and must not grant such requests without IT's informed consent. The author's consent alone is not sufficient for any material to be considered republishable.

9. Contact information - organisations: For stories that involve profiles of organisations, individuals or associations, or refer to their work in detail you must submit the relevant contact information. Readers often write to us asking for this information. If this information is not submitted, it must be because your subjects want their information withheld on reasonable grounds.
   

10. Discretion of editors and management: India Together reserves the right to remove any material without notification from its pages at any time, and for any reason. Although material that is once published will not be further edited for content (except to correct previously unfixed errors such as typos are incorrect sentence structures, or to add value through new information), we reserve the right to remove documents entirely, if in our determination their continued accessibility on the site is not in India Together's interest.

Our regrets!: We get a lot of requests, and we try as much as possible to respond to each of you separately. Just as importantly, we limit ourselves to a specific number of articles each month, and over two-thirds of these are chosen from existing arrangements. There are still opportunities for new interests; however, please do not be discouraged if we decline to publish your work.