The India chapter of the International Press Institute presented the awards for excellence in journalism for the years 2020 and 2021 here on Saturday.
Ritika Chopra, National Education Editor at The Indian Express, won the award for the year 2020, for her report on differences within the Election Commission of India on how to deal with violations of the model code of conduct.
The award for 2021, in the print category, went to Lakshmi Subramanian and Bhanu Prakash Chandra of The Week, for a report from Syria on widows and children of ISIS recruits from India. The award for 2021 in the television category went to Mariyam Alavi and Sreenivasan Jain of NDTV, for an investigation on false cases of ‘love jihad’ in Uttar Pradesh.
The award includes a trophy, citation and cash prize of Rs 2 lakh. The awards were presented by journalist and author Mark Tully.
Justice Madan B Lokur, former judge of the Supreme Court, chaired the jury for the 2021 award, while the jury was headed by former Attorney General Soli Sorabjee in 2020.
At the award ceremony, Justice Lokur said, “It is a matter of common knowledge that the press is under attack in many ways. Many journalists have been arrested and kept in prison for a considerable period of time for doing their work as journalists. Many others have had FIRs filed against them for the same reason. There are also instances of journalists being asked to toe the line by the management.”
“It is for this reason that expressions like ‘chilling effect’ have become common in usage. Consequently, journalists have become far more conscious than they ought to be or have been in the past,” Justice Lokur said.
“Going forward, journalists need to prioritise issues of human interest and concern, as also issues relating to governance, through investigative journalism,” he said.
On the challenges of human interest, Justice Lokur spoke about the “mass migration” due to the lockdown following the Covid pandemic. “Soon after the lockdown, all of us saw millions of Indians trudging their way home on foot or on cycle, or on overloaded tempos or trucks. However, the Supreme Court was informed by the government that no one was on the road at that time. Did we have the facts or did we not? Did we have the truth or did we not? To what extent did the information passed on to the Supreme Court and to the people of India damage the trust in the government to tell the truth?”
Mark Tully said, “What we have to do as the public is sort out, find the journalists we trust and follow them.”
“The award winners are shining examples of independent public service journalism,” said
M K Razdan, former editor-in-chief of PTI, who was a member of the jury, along with N Ravi and Riyad Mathew.