Zaffar Iqbal
Regional Reporting, Jammu and Kashmir (Broadcast) NDTV
Zaffar Iqbal was just two years into his job in the Valley when a terror attack on his newspaper office left the 32-year-old with three bullet injuries. “It took me a long time to live down the nightmare,” he says. But when he joined work after four months, this time at NDTV, Iqbal was determined to look at the brighter side of life in the Valley.
Iqbal came across a group of Kashmiri youth who dreamt of being models and he captured their stories. “For anybody who hasn’t experienced life in the Valley, it’s difficult to understand how even such a simple thing as modelling can be such a big deal. Talking to these youths, some of who were Kashmiri Pandits, was a revelation of sorts. For many of them simply waking up to a world where there was no violence in their everyday life was a culture shock. Modelling for them became far more than a career,” says Iqbal.
—Paromita Chakrabarti

Nilanjana Bose
Uncovering India Invisible (Broadcast)
CNN-IBN
On a story to Guntur, an AIDS afflicted belt in Andhra Pradesh, Nilanjana Bose expected to find helpless orphans. Instead, she found little heroes.
‘‘I found village after village of brave children who were like little soldiers waging their own war. They were not the helpless kids I had imagined. These were little adults who were going out, had taken over as breadwinners, were fending for their grandparents, feeding their sick younger siblings, and taking care of themselves,” says Bose.
All along, she had a burning conviction: not to reveal the identities of the positive children and people she met, while all along performing the harder task of not telling the children that they were, in fact, positive.
One image in Bose’s mind lingers: of a five year old orphan, going out to work as a ragpicker to support her ailing grandmother, an HIV positive sex worker who had lost her legs. As she says: “I am proud of my work, but also very humbled.”
—Neha Sinha

David Buhril
Regional Reporting, Northeast (Print)
The North-East Sun
The man from Churachandpur, Manipur, looks at a story in two different ways: how will his readers outside the Northeast relate to it? And how will those at the helm of affairs in the region respond to it?
Buhril went into the hills of Manipur last year, to Tipaimukh, where militant groups had unleashed a brutal campaign against ethnic groups. “We visited one village where a group of women who had been raped had taken shelter and they had been given no medical facilities.” Buhril arranged for their transport to the nearest town. Spending a week in the villages, he saw the landmines the militants had strewn the hills with. He saw first-hand the plight of refugees who had fled to neighbouring Mizoram.
“One of the aims of my stories was to get the message across to those who ought to be responsible,” he says.
—Siddhartha Sarma

Gautam Bhimani
Sports (Broadcast), ESPN/Star Sports
Gautam Bhimani’s niche in his words, “lies in off-beat stories which capture the different shades of cricket.” Then he talks about the beginning, in December 2003, commentating with Sunil Gavaskar at the Adelaide Oval, made all the more memorable with India’s win.
Then he tells you about the bull elephant at a game park on the South Africa-Botswana border which posed in the background for the camera in November last year. “I quietly finished the shot and jumped into the pool in front. So you see, even elephants pose for TV these days,” he says.
He recounts the time when he faced up to Wasim Akram’s bowling at the nets in Africa. ‘‘He actually hit me during the shoot,” Bhimani says. “And that, as you see, was my Journalism of Courage,” he adds.
—Siddhartha Sarma

Amelia Gentleman
Foreign Correspondent Covering India
International Herald Tribune
Amelia Gentleman’s last posting was in Paris, which is why when she came to India two years ago, Gentleman was a little wary about her new assignment. “I thought I would miss the Parisian culture and the beauty of the city, but when I came here it was very liberating. There’s a sense of energy and dynamism in India right now because of the flourishing economy,” says the foreign correspondent of the International Herald Tribune.
But months into her new job Gentleman sensed that beneath all the optimism, there was a lot that contradicted the upwardly mobile graph of India. “I was working on a series on children, particularly rural children, because I thought it would be interesting to map out the next generation of Indians through the rapid economic growth,” says the 35-year-old. As she travelled all over northern India, she stumbled upon Auraiya district in northern UP. “I discovered there was 0 percent birth registration there over the last decade because of bureaucratic red tape,” she says. “It was a worrying picture about how such a large percentage of these children lived in poverty and there was no statistical result at all of their existence,” she says. Gentleman’s series brought to the fore the plight of kids across India who were forced into labour or were prey to trafickking. “I have two young kids myself and it’s a lovely place to bring them up, but if you look at the broader picture there’s still a fair bit of work that the government needs to do to put things into perspective,” she says.
—Paromita Chakrabarti

Shivani Naik
Sports (Print), The Indian Express
She has journeyed through the far pavilions — literally. “In my four years as a journalist, I have travelled out from the city to look for the lesser-known sports,” she says. With the spotlight on cricket, Naik feels coverage of others sports is still at an amateur stage. “But things will evolve. Till then, I shall continue covering different disciplines. Cricket is too uni-dimensional.”
She recounts a rugby match she covered in Chennai, where a boxing club was one team. “There was an altercation between the teams and then the boxers’ captain started running towards the referee, possibly to beat him up. I was standing near the referee and I thought he was going to attack me instead. So I ran. The entire field cracked up. Those are the kind of characters you find in lesser-known sports, and they make excellent news.”
—Siddhartha Sarma

Kishalay Bhattacharjee
Regional Reporting, Northeast (Broadcast), NDTV
Kishalay Bhattacharjee came to the Northeast seven years ago, planning to stay for a year. He stayed on. “The region is a great place to work; it has conflict, wildlife, rock music, diverse elements. The downside is stories from the NE do not generate much sponsorship.”
In the recent past, Bhattacharjee has begun concentrating on the big picture. He says he has been lucky that the stories to whose roots he reached became bigger issues, such as narco-terrorism. For the future, though, the journalist who pays equal attention to technical details sees “no possibility of the region figuring prominently in TV news. “Viewers outside know about Sania Mirza, 38th in world tennis, but not about Mary Kom, No. 1 in world boxing.”
—Siddhartha Sarma

Hiral Sachde& Khushboo Narayan
Business and Economic Journalism (Broadcast)
CNBC-TV18
“Journalism requires the knack to notice the extraordinary in the ordinary,” says Sachde. She should know. After all, it was this ability that led her to one of the biggest news exposes last year: she, along with colleague Khushboo Narayan, busted the fake PAN card racket, where agents were selling the cards for small fees in Mumbai.
The lead for the senior correspondent at CNBC-TV18 came through good, old observation. Sachde noticed PAN card advertisements at the Borivali railway station, from where she took a train to her office. “It seemed fishy to advertise for PAN cards at a station. I knew there was a scandal here.” After a call to the advertised number, Sachde and Narayan visit the agent’s office at Dadar. “We assumed fake identities and asked for PAN cards without any identity proof. The agent obliged and was even willing to concoct documents for an additional fee,” says Narayan, 24, correspondent and assistant producer with CNBC.
After a month-long probe, the duo was ready to air their story. The telecast led to police raids across Mumbai.
—Vandana Kalra

Ritu Sarin
Journalist of the Year (Print)
The Indian Express
In her 25-year-old career, breaking news has become a habit with Ritu Sarin. “Breaking stories on agencies like the CBI, IB and RAW is not difficult,” she says. “What it needs is sustained follow-up, careful cultivation of sources and a hard nose for news.”
As member of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, chief of the Investigative Bureau in the Express and author of The Assassination of Indira Gandhi, Sarin knows the downside of digging up unpalatable truths.“This past year there have been occasions when senior government functionaries have threatened me over leaking confidential files. My sources warned me my movements were under surveillance,” she says.
TV may have changed the face of investigative journalism but, says Sarin, “What they look for is impact, very often with little scope for in-depth analysis and sustained legwork. Investigation has a longer shelf-value in print, where every word is carefully chosen.”
—Siddhartha Sarma

Dionne Bunsha
Environmental Reporting (Print), Frontline
Books (Non-fiction)
From the Godhra carnage in Gujarat to the translocation of Asiatic lions from Gir to Kuno-Palpur forest in Madhya Pradesh, Dionne Bunsha always manages to unfold the real picture by questioning the apparent.
When the nation was celebrating the proposal to shift Asiatic lions from Gir to Kuno-Palpur forests situated more than 1,000 km away, Bunsha was inquisitive to assess the field situation. And the search took her on location, in 2005, approximately six years after the recommendation was accepted by the government. “The 1,600 families, mainly Sahariya Adivasis, who were made to shift out of the forest had still not properly re-settled and were living on barren land with no alternative livelihood. Even the five to eight lions were yet to translocate to Kuno,” she points out.
The two-part series that was published in Frontline, where Bunsha is a special correspondent, thus not merely described the misery of the villagers, but also raised questions on the practicality of the proposal.
Meanwhile, Bunsha was also penning a separate list of questions for Scarred: Experiments with Violence in Gujarat, her debut book that unveiled the role played by ‘faceless mobs’ who engineered the attacks in Gujarat. She notes, “The book examines different aspects of a society that is called the ‘Hindutva Experiment’. It describes the lives of ordinary people, the politics, the media in a state that is run by a party that subscribes to a divisive, authoritarian way of thinking that derived inspiration from European fascism.”
The 34-year-old may not yet have zeroed in on the theme for her next book, but portraying reality is certainly on her radar.
— Vandana Kalra

Ravish Kumar
Regional Award, Hindi (Broadcast), NDTV India
Often journalists stumble upon stories they aspire to. Ravish Kumar’s story was lying unclaimed in his neighbourhood apartment. That’s where he met people he had been looking for years — the early beneficiaries of the SC/ST reservations.
The apartment in East Delhi’s Patparganj colony had a past that had slipped into anonymity after a name change. To eighty retired middle and junior level government officers who founded it in the 1970s, it was ‘Dalit Apartments’ first which went on to accommodate upper-caste residents years later.
But convincing them to open up before a television journalist was difficult. His persistence paid off and Kumar got to film one of the most sensitive stories of his career. His camera recorded the older generation’s attempts at preserving Ambedkar’s ideals to their confident grandchildren’s fetish for Shah Rukh Khan.
“As we recorded in the story, it was no more about an underprivileged community creating their own space in Urban India but also about them sharing their space with others,” he says.
—Pallavi Singh

MV Nikesh Kumar
Regional Award, Indian Language (Broadcast), Indiavision
MV Nikesh Kumar’s channel is sponsored by a Muslim politician in Kerala’s political heartland but as CEO of Indiavision, Kumar has managed to stay independent.
“In the South, politicians and political ideas are news and entertainment. In that context, keeping ourselves independent has not been easy.”
“I worked with Asianet, South India’ first cable channel, in Delhi for a while. Then I thought, I cannot start an English channel in Delhi, but I can definitely do English down in the South, which will be my next step. An entertainment channel is in the pipeline. I have a lot of dreams, but this award has given a thrust to them, a beginning.”
— Neha Sinha

Syed Nazakat
Regional Award for Reporting on Jammu and Kashmir (Print), Sahara Times
The insecurities faced by people in war-torn Jammu and Kashmir don’t surprise Syed Nazakat. After all, he was born and brought up in the Valley. But when the 29-year-old visited the state’s border after the October 2005 earthquake, he was shocked. “The relief activities hadn’t started even 24 hours after the quake.”
The then senior correspondent at Sahara Times, Delhi, he used the rare opportunity to gain access to the restricted area. Two years on, he has moved to Bangkok as Assistant News Editor of Asia News Network, but Nazakat hopes to do more stories on the villages near the Line of Control. “As an onlooker I felt frustrated with the rules. The misery of those who live there can only be imagined. Unfortunately, they rarely makes it to news.”
For a while, Nazakat made sure they did.
—Vandana Kalra

Shekhar Vasant Deshmukh
Reporting on HIV/AIDS (Print, Marathi) Loksatta
“Mauka.” (Opportunity) That’s how Shekhar describes the time when he got to meet HIV orphans in Delhi four years ago. That pretty much changed his life.
“I held this 13-month-old baby in my arms. She was an orphan, her parents had died of HIV. We didn’t know whether this baby was infected too. But it just struck me how sad and ridiculous the situation was,” he says. “This is the only disease,” Shekhar adds, “which leaves the victim with an unassailable sense of guilt.”
He followed the trail of the killer all over the country. “I also found people who had found new strength, and ironically, a new hope for living, after having contracted the disease,” he says. The name Kaushalya comes to mind. “She was a 13-year-old bride in Tamil Nadu, whose husband died of HIV and left her with the disease. But she didn’t keep saying that she was going to die. She had the strength to fight.”
His year long stint has left him with a valuable comprehension. “I feel like I have seen life close by, not death.”
— Neha Sinha

Manini Chatterjee
Political Reporting (Print),
The Indian Express
At 23 when most youngsters of her generation were still in college, Manini Chatterjee was covering the crucial 1984 general elections that brought Rajiv Gandhi to power.
In the two decades that followed, the veteran political journalist has seen political reportage across newspapers make space for city-centric news. But she has managed to hold on to her own. The real joy of her work, according to her, lies in the people she meets on the field. “Every time I go to cover polls, I’m struck by the common man’s robust common sense, innate political sense and basic human courtesy,” she says.
She, however, agrees that political reporting of today needs to change. “Politics is not just about politicians; it’s also about people. The focus therefore has to change,” she says.
— Pallavi Singh

Rajdeep Sardesai
Journalist of the Year (Broadcast)
CNN-IBN
Rolling cameras are known to be intrusive but in his 13 years of broadcast journalism, reputed journalist and editor-in-chief of CNN-IBN Rajdeep Sardesai has changed much of that perception. Sardesai has covered momentous events in India’s recent history—his reportage spanning crucial business of politics and international relations, but he insists his journey has been all about “being at the right time and at the right places”.
His live election coverage have made numbers interesting and his news breaks in politics — like the one on Congress chief Sonia Gandhi declining prime ministership in 2004 — went on to become the biggest stories ever. Yet, he feels broadcast journalism is in an evolutionary stage. “It’s a big challenge for television news to go beyond First Information Reports,” he says.
Covering Gujarat riots became difficult at a personal level. “I had a hunch that Gujarat would be affected by what had happened in Godhra. So, while many journalists rushed to Ayodhya, I travelled to Gujarat. I have a deep personal attachment to the place. My grandma lives in Ahmedabad, so it was difficult. We were targeted for doing our jobs,” he recounts.
—Pallavi Singh

Bhasha Singh
Regional Award, Hindi (Print)
Outlook Saptahik
Bhasha Singh was often asked to write about the beautiful world but she chose to see the filth and travelled to six states to tell the story of women scavengers. A casual conversation with a social activist in Rajasthan led her to clues on the story. “I could not sleep the day I was told about the poor condition of the female scavengers,” she recalls.
After almost three years of travel to UP, Bihar, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Gujarat and New Delhi, her stories were published in January 2005. “Manual scavenging is illegal since 1993 but in states like West Bengal, government itself employs manual scavengers,’ she says.
Later, all her reports became part of a PIL filed in the Supreme Court seeking abolition of scavenging.
— Pallavi Singh

Bahar Dutt
Environmental Reporting (Broadcast), CNN-IBN
She quit her job as a conservationist and consultant with Wildlife Trust of India to join broadcast journalism. “What prompted me was the lack of environmental news reporting.”
So when Mulayam Singh Yadav announced construction of an airport in his constituency in Etawah, Dutt’s immediate concern was the future of Sarus cranes in the region. She visited the airfield a day before the Supreme Court Committee was to assess if the airport would harm the bird’s habitat. “The wetlands were being filled with mud and nearly 15 local villagers were deployed around the airstrip to shoo away the Sarus cranes nesting there,” says Dutt, environment editor at CNN-IBN.
Though most of the villagers were not willing to speak before camera, 32-year-old Dutt’s prayers were answered when one of them came forward to tell the truth. “A single quote can often make all the difference,” she notes.
—Vandana Kalra