16 stories that needed excellence and how they got it

The awards covered the whole sweep of Indian media—print and broadcast, English and Indian languages, environment and business. The Regional Award for the Northeast went to freelance journalist Ratna Bharali Talukdar for print and NDTV’s Sutapa Deb for broadcast. Mir Ehsan of The Indian Express won the award for Jammu & Kashmir (print) and NDTV’s Vikram Choudhary (broadcast).

The award for regional languages (broadcast) went to Aaj Tak’s Punya Prasun Bajpai while Lokmat’s Sopan Pandharipande won it for print.

Freelance Journalist Ramesh Menon got the award for best environmental reporting (print) and NDTV’s Swati Thyagarajan for broadcast. The award for Uncovering India Invisible (print) went to freelancer C. Vanaja, and to Shikha Trivedy of NDTV (broadcast). The Business and Economic Journalism award for print went to Vikas Dhoot for his work in Business World while Menaka Doshi from CNBC TV18 won it for broadcast. The award for Foreign Correspondent Covering India (print) went to The New York Times’ Somini Sengupta.

The winners came from all over India bearing stories that showcased the best of journalism. They were awarded for their courageous, moving and accurate reports that set the benchmark for journalism in India.

‘‘You are in the business of capturing the minds of people, of shaping ideas and thereby transforming society. I hope these awards will encourage more of our journalists to pursue the journalism of change,’’ said Prime Minister Singh.

Remembering his father Ramnath Goenka’s passion for journalism, chairman of the Ramnath Goenka Foundation and Chairman and Managing Director of the Indian Express group, Viveck Goenka, said: ‘‘If my father was watching today, he would have said, let’s get straight to the story.’’

That line set much of the mood of the morning and the brief, focussed and lively ceremony that followed.

Dutt got the award for her reports from Nagapattinam that captured the tragedy of lives shattered by the tsunami; Swami for his stories on terrorism in Kashmir and George for exposing the Bihar Flood Relief scandal.

Each of the award-winning work represented an excellence that leads to equity, said The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta. ‘‘The debate between equity and excellence is more important than ever now,’’ he added.

The event was attended among others by Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje, Union ministers Sushil Kumar Shinde, Praful Patel, Suresh Pachauri and Ram Vilas Paswan, Army chief JJ Singh, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Congress leader Ahmed Patel, economist Lord Meghnad Desai, CPI leader D Raja, Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, JD(U) leader Jaya Jaitley, MPs Rajeev Shukla, Jyotiraditya Scindia and Naveen Jindal, director of Videocon Industries Anidrudh Dhoot, former minister and former editor of The Indian Express Arun Shourie, NDTV’s Prannoy Roy, Pakistan High Commissioner Aziz Ahmed Khan and CEO of Bharti Group Sunil Mittal. Jury members, senior Supreme Court lawyer Fali S Nariman, ONGC chairman and managing director Subir Raha and National Commission for Farmers Chairman M S Swaminathan, too, were present.

The awards given, it was the Prime Minister’s turn to receive a memento: A framed black-and-white photograph, capturing him with a different portfolio and a different attire. Express National Photo Editor Praveen Jain had taken the photo in 1991 when Dr Manmohan Singh was Finance Minister and had not yet exchanged the shirt and tie for kurtas. Accompanying the photographs was a set of cartoons by Express’s cartoonist E P Unny.

When the curtains came down on India’s biggest journalism awards, it was with more good news. Four news awards will be instituted next year among them one in partnership with the Johns Hopkins University for excellence in covering HIV/AIDS in India. The other new categories are film journalism; sports; and the best non fiction book.