The IPI India Award for Excellence in Journalism-2021 has been given jointly to Sreenivasan Jain and Mariyam Alavi of NDTV and Lakshmi Subramanian and Bhanu Prakash Chandra of The Week.
Mr. Jain and Ms. Alavi have been conferred the award for “the story on exposure of the untruthfulness of the cases of forcible conversion registered against young men belonging to Muslim community who had married Hindu women in Uttar Pradesh, in the name of Love Jihad”.
The award has been given to Ms. Subramanian and Mr. Chandra for the “exposure to trace Indians, especially women, who were trapped in refugee camps in the civil war-torn regions of Syria and Iraq. The team presented the extremely distressing conditions and the immense dangers faced not only by Indians but other refugees”.
The award comprises a cash prize of ₹1 lakh, a trophy and a citation, to each team.
The selection was made by a distinguished jury, headed by former Supreme Court judge, Justice Madan B. Lokur, after considering the entries received.
The Excellence in Journalism Award-2020 had been awarded to Ritika Chopra of The Indian Express “for her exclusive reports on the internal fissures in the Election Commission of India on action against complaints violation of Model Code of Conduct violation against VVIPs”.
“But the Award ceremony could not be conducted due to restrictions on public functions necessitated due to COVID conditions. The Awards for 2020 and 2021 will be presented at a function in New Delhi in December 2021/January 2022,” read a statement, adding that the Award has been given to 16 media organisations and Journalists in Print and Electronic Media so far.
The Indian Chapter of the IPI is an active forum of editors, publishers and senior executives of newspapers, magazines and news agencies, all of whom are members of the International Press Institute. The Indian Chapter has successfully hosted the World Congress and General Assembly of the IPI in India in 1966 and 2001, and is taking up various issues related to Press freedom.
Founded 71 years ago in New York by a group of editors from 15 countries, the International Press Institute is now a global organisation committed to the furtherance of the freedom of press.
