Between their lines

A chance assignment set him off to uncover what is now being called the “biggest scam in the history of India”. Everyone in the government,says Gopikrishnan,was “lying and challenging people to prove an iota of corruption in the allotment of 2G spectrum”. He accepted the challenge and first unveiled the irregularities in the spectrum allocation and followed it meticulously till “things reached their logical conclusion.”

He may have received 200 legal notices in the last two years but Gopikrishnan says he is satisfied that because of the pressure the media exposure created around 2G,corruption in 3G could be avoided.

Journalist of the Year (Broadcast)

Udayan Mukherjee,CNBC-TV18

With his nuanced minute-by-minute analysis of the financial crisis of 2008-9,Mukherjee’s daily shows became classrooms for anyone interested in understanding recession. “I am glad we did not let our viewers down at a time when they were grappling with so much information. We had a degree of expertise and experience that helped us in breaking down these incredibly complex movements,” he says.

Mukherjee who has done his graduation in Economics from Kolkata’s Presidency College and masters from Jawaharlal Nehru University,was

well-equipped to interpret the ups and downs of the markets as they played out during the financial crisis. “Unlike political reporting,the markets don’t subscribe to any set rules. Doing it in the real time world of TV was tougher since here we do not have the luxury of time to assimilate information,” he says.

Award for Hindi (Print)

Anshuman Tiwari,Dainik Jagran

As Delhi was gearing up to host the Commonwealth Games,Anshuman Tiwari sounded a warning bell. His stories highlighted how unprepared Delhi was for the Games.

“There were issues of mismanagement and corruption. I had to cover them not as a sports correspondent,but from an economic point of view. Then,there were other problems like lack of information. In the OC,there was no transparency,” says Tiwari,Chief of National Bureau at Jagran.

Award for Hindi (Broadcast)

Hridayesh Joshi,NDTV India

Hriyadesh Joshi visited China during the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. “We had a big problem communicating to people there and I wondered how Indians living in China got by,” says Joshi. “I found that there was a separate Hindi department at Peking University where many Chinese students were learning Hindi,” says Joshi,a senior special correspondent.

Regional Languages (Print)

Rejeena VP,Madhyamam Daily

Rejeena first saw “the way a city swallows a village” in Mayanadu,a place poisoned by untreated sewage water flowing from the Kozhikode Medical College. Her story on Mayanadu set the tone for other stories to follow.

Her next series focussed on Neliyanparambu,a village that has been Kozhikode city’s dumping ground since colonial times. “The administration was planning to acquire more land for dumping waste when my series came out. Those plans had to be shelved,” says Rejeena.

Regional Languages (Broadcast)

Prakash Noolvi,TV9

A week after Prakash Noolvi first received a call about the prevalence of the Devadasi tradition in Kudligi in Karnataka’s Bellary district,he set off to Kudligi to discover a village that was selling its own women. He approached one of the village’s 350 families as a customer. His sting operation revealed stories of girls whose “families had turned pimps”. The story resulted in a police raid in Kudligi and helped curb the practice in the village,says Noolvi.

Uncovering India Invisible (Print)

Maitreyee Handique,Mint

For a five-part series on industrial safety—or the lack of it—Maitreyee Handique travelled all over the country. “I used to hang out outside labour courts and that is how I got to know of people who had their fingers cut in accidents or got burned but were getting no compensation. Besides,many companies outsource work and safety standards inside the factory don’t apply to labourers outside. Basically,products are being made by cutting corners. This is the other side of India’s growth story,” says Handique.

Environmental Reporting (Print)

Samanth Subramanian,Mint

Two decades after the Ganga Action Plan was launched,the river was no cleaner. Samanth Subramanian,author of Following Fish: Travels around the Indian Coast,chronicled the decline of the river in a series that went beyond official statements and statistics to tell the story through Varanasi residents whose lives were bound to the Ganga.

“The pollution of the Ganga was something that deserved attention. A lot of abstract stuff had been written but it seemed to me that no one had looked at the way the town was structured around the river and how the lives of its people were affected by it,” says Subramanian,now a foreign correspondent for The National,a newspaper based in the UAE.

Environmental Reporting (Print)

Rahul Chandawarkar,DNA

In a series of stories,Rahul Chandawarkar wrote on how pollution was destroying the hill stations of Panchgani and Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra. “I camped in the area for almost a week to do these stories. After the stories,sewage treatment in the stations came to the spotlight. The need for garbage segregation got focus,” says Chandawarkar.

Environmental Reporting (Broadcast)

Arti Kulkarni,IBN Lokmat

After seeing an online petition opposing a proposed coal mine in the Tadoba National Park in Maharashtra,Arti Kulkarni set off investigating the issue. She took her findings to the Environment Ministry to show them that 1,750 sq km of forestland that had been marked for coal mining by the Adani group was in the buffer zone of the Tadoba National Park,a prime corridor for the tigers of the region. She successfully proved that mining in the region was illegal.

Reporting on J&K and the Northeast (Print)

Teresa Rehman,Tehelka

“My story was based on a series of photographs which showed a minute-by-minute account of how an unarmed young man was accosted by policemen and shot dead in a busy marketplace in Imphal. A local photographer had managed to capture this alleged encounter. He was petrified and approached me as I lived in a neighbouring state (Assam) and represented a national media house,” says Rehman.

Rehman says she received death threats after the story. “But in a positive sign,14 months after Chungkham Sanjit Singh Meitei was killed in a fake encounter,the CBI filed a chargesheet against nine of the 14 accused policemen,” says Rehman.

Reporting from J&K and the Northeast (Broadcast)

Arijit Sen,CNN-IBN

Arijit Sen first heard of the deaths of 27-year-old Chungkham Sanjit and Rabina Devi in Imphal from a source. He then travelled to the state to seek the truth. Both were allegedly killed in police encounters. He met members of their families and narrated their stories.

“Of the 40 militant organisations in Manipur,at least nine are actively engaged in an armed struggle with the state. The civilians are caught in this struggle,” says Sen.

On-the-Spot Reporting (Print)

Muzamil Jaleel

Muzamil Jaleel has reported extensively from conflict zones but he says the Lankan Government’s rout of the LTTE in 2009 was unlike anything he had seen before. “It was the scariest place I have ever been to. I remember looking down on the jungles from military choppers—there was so much destruction,it was unbelievable,” he says.

His coverage of the last days of the LTTE brought to the readers snapshots that revealed what many said was the real picture behind the war. The chilling account of the desolation in the LTTE capital of Kilinochchi after its military takeover,the government’s blanket control over the media and the story of the newsroom of the Sunday Leader,one of the only papers which had been critical of the war,after their editor Lasantha Wickramatunge was assassinated,were some of the stories he reported from Lanka.

On-the-Spot Reporting (Broadcast)

Preeti Singh,CNN-IBN

For Preeti Singh and her team,reaching the flood-affected areas in Andhra was a challenge. “It was a real challenge to reach Kurnool,the worst affected district. The national highway was cut off,there was slush and stench all around,people were falling ill. Our focus was to help get these problems on air,” says Singh. “For children in a relief camp,their main worry was the books and bags they had lost in the floods.” says Singh. After her reports were aired,many people came forward to provide bags and books for the children.

Civic Journalism (Print)

Tripti Lahiri,Tehelka

Her story on Delhi’s rising population and space crunch that was edging the poor out of a city highlighted the immediate concerns arising out of the sealing and demolition drive in Delhi. “While driving around in Delhi,I would notice houses being demolished. Overnight,people were being rendered homeless. I started wondering why so many people had been forced to live in illegal houses. Questions like why there is a housing shortage in the city led me to do a story on the housing crisis in Delhi,” says Lahiri.

Film and Television Journalism (Print)

Shubhra Gupta,The Indian Express

Known for her insightful and witty film reviews,Shubhra Gupta has covered films for more than 20 years now. “It’s not in the least bit about the stars. It’s about the impact a film has had on you,if it has changed the way you look at a certain thing,for example; or,has it given you another way of seeing? The film comes first,the stars come later,” she says.

Gupta’s writings have also chronicled the changing landscape of films. “Because of the mulitplex growth,there has been a definite skew towards urban-centric stories and characters. But there have been a few brave directors who’ve stuck to their origins and given us films that have left the tight confines of the city.”

Film and Television Journalism (Print)

Sonal Kalra,HT City

For a series on ‘Power Couples’,Sonal Kalra interviewed five Bollywood couples in their homes. The featured couples included Amitabh and Jaya Bachchan,Akshay Kumar and Twinkle Khanna,Shah Rukh Khan and Gauri Khan,Saif Ali Khan and Kareena Kapoor and Abhishek and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan.

“After the list was finalised,I went about contacting each couple but their initial response was a ‘no’.”

Finally they relented and readers got to see Bollywood’s most powerful couples in their homes.

Film and Television Journalism (Broadcast)

Archana Sharma,Lok Sabha TV

When Archana Sharma,an anchor with Lok Sabha TV,began working on a documentary Hauslon ki Udaan on the Aman Kachroo ragging incident,the challenge was how to recreate the events. “It was a news story and the problem was how to make it into a documentary,to visualise how the events must have occurred and the entire incident,” says Sharma.

Initially,Sharma wasn’t sure what the main focus of her story would be but later she decided to string together all issues that arose from the ragging and death of Aman Kachroo,a medical student in Himachal in 2009.

Reporting on Politics and Government (Print)

Sujith Nair,Malayala Manorama

Sujith Nair,who has been covering Left politics in Kerala since 1995,exposed the paranoia that gripped the Achuthanandan-led LDF government in 2009 after a slew of controversies when he wrote on a circular issued by the CM forbidding government officials from disclosing any official information to the media. “It was at a time when factional politics within the Left was beginning to affect the government. The government’s nine-point circular basically forbade all disclosure without permission from the Public Relations Department. It was unofficial censorship,” he says. The furore caused by his reports eventually led to government shelving the order.

Reporting on Politics and Government (Print)

Maneesh Chhibber,The Indian Express

It was almost after a year-and-a half of chasing and meeting people on his weekend trips home in Chandigarh from Delhi,that Maneesh Chhibber managed to get his hands on the contents of the Justice Manmohan Singh Liberhan Commission report on Ayodhya. “The government at that time had no plans to make the report public. Before moving to Delhi,I had worked in Chandigarh where Justice Liberhan was from,and it was expected that I would get hold of the report. It used to get listed under my name at every weekly meeting and became a sort of running joke,” says Chhibber.

The report shook Parliament with its references indicting senior political leaders for the Babri Masjid demolition. “It caused a huge uproar in Parliament. My phone would not stop ringing,” says Chhibber.

Reporting on Politics and Government (Broadcast)

Maya Mirchandani,NDTV

What started as an effort to follow a “reclusive” Prime Minister on his campaign trail in 2009,turned into his first interview to an Indian journalist. After months of requests with the PMO,when she was finally called to the PM’s constituency in Guwahati,Mirchandani,a journalist for over 15 years,wanted everything to be perfect. “As luck would have it,the PM walked in while we were still setting up our equipment,” she recalls. But it was during this five-minute interaction that the PM,for the first time,categorically said he had no regrets about the public spat with L K Advani.

With a specialisation in world politics from the London School of Economics,Mirchandani’s reports on diplomatic meetings have made their mark on Indian television. Her story on the PM’s first meeting after 26/11 with Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardari in Russia,was one such story,which contributed to this award.

Reporting on Politics and Government (Broadcast)

Anubha Bhosle,CNN-IBN

A series of RTIs to unearth the source of funds gathered by political parties led to many discoveries. From ghost political parties that collected funds for bigger parties to industrialists with loyalties to one party funding the opposition,Anubha Bhonsle’s Paisa Power Politics,followed the money trail in politics. “The story brought on screen what was always suspected but never seen—the cosy relationship between politics and industrialists,the agreements between those who fight elections and those who fund them,” says Bhonsle.

Business and Economic Journalism (Print)

Saumya Bhattacharya,

Business Today

Capturing the despondency that gripped the workforce in corporate India with her story,‘Job loss: Are you next?’,Saumya Bhattacharya told the story of lakhs of middle class men and women who overnight found themselves without jobs. “It was a very chaotic time,there were mass lay-offs. Even star performers were asked to leave and no one could understand what was going on,” says Bhattacharya. With almost no data available in India on job loss and no one willing to talk about it,Saumya relied on top placement firms to help her get in touch with employees across cities.

Business and Economic Journalism (Print)

Puja Mehra,Business Today

When a fear of recession paralysed the Indian consumer,Puja Mehra wrote on the vicious cycle brought about by decreased spending. “There was so much bad news coming from outside that people started spending less as they were afraid of losing jobs. As a result. companies started losing profits,and more people started losing jobs. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. I found myself delaying a purchase saying ‘this is a bad time’. So,as a journalist,I decided to investigate this,” says Mehra.

Business and Economic Journalism (Broadcast)

Shaili Chopra,ET Now

Ever since the beginning of the economic crisis,Shaili Chopra has been telling her audience how complex business will affect their simple lives. “It’s the kind of journalism that aims to simplify for the audience what goes beyond the stock ticker.”

She managed to get the biggest names in business,such as Warren Buffett,Vikram Pandit,Amartya Sen and Indra Nooyi,to talk about the crisis.

Commentary and Interpretative Writing (Print)

Team Mint

An “army” of 20 reporters set out to debunk the myth of the financial crisis toppling Indian markets,and found their answers in the hinterlands.

What followed was a series—‘Bharat Shining’—which took readers across the country,discovering how many companies were staying afloat by investing heavily in rural markets. Looking back,Mint editor R Sukumar says,“By 2008,it was clear that the panic in the Indian markets was largely sentimental. From early 2009,we had daily meetings in the newsroom to examine the apparent resilience of the Indian economy. The thought of going to the rural markets emerged in one of these meetings,” Sukumar recalled. “As always,we reported the macro aspects first,and then started getting individual stories,” he says.

Sports Journalism (Print)

GS Vivek,The Indian Express

Covering the second edition of the IPL in South Africa,Vivek reported not just on the game but on a host of things around it. “There is one story I did on a controversial SMS game launched by the IPL that asked fans to predict the scores of a live match,which amounted to fixing and betting. It was picked up by the Indian media and government,eventually resulting in the game being banned,” says Vivek,a special correspondent with The Indian Express,who has also played cricket at the state level.

Sports Journalism

(Broadcast)

Anjali Doshi,NDTV

It was while covering matches in New Zealand and South Africa between February and June 2009 that Anjali Doshi decided she wanted to show viewers what cricketers did off the field. Getting access to cricketers wasn’t easy but Doshi’s persistence paid off.

“I managed to capture M S Dhoni fishing and Sachin Tendulkar walking atop Auckland’s tallest building. My favourite was shooting Matthew Hayden surfing in Durban.”

Investigative Reporting (Broadcast)

Rajat Kain,NDTV India

Rajat Kain’s series of stories exposed a flourishing gun culture in the heart of India’s NCR. “In December 2007,there was a shooting incident in a Gurgaon school. Two students of class VIII shot their classmate. This sparked off questions on how these children had got their hands on a gun. I started investigating the socio-economic dynamics of people who had sold their farm land to builders and had recently come into money. To replicate the lifestyle of the rich,they had started buying SUVs,guns etc,” says Kain.

Investigative Reporting (Print)

Team Indian Express,Mumbai

Several unanswered questions after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks led the team from The Indian Express to minutely probe the events of those three days and seek answers from security agencies,officials and politicians about what went wrong in the response to the attack. “We started our investigation about four months after the attacks. There were some glaring loopholes in the information provided by government agencies and no one seemed to have answers,at least officially. For instance,the NSG took 12 hours to reach Mumbai from Delhi,two senior IPS officers lost their lives during the attack and there seemed to be no Standard Operating Procedure. All this led us to seek answers through our investigative series,” says the Resident Editor of The Indian Express,Mumbai,Y P Rajesh.

The biggest challenge for the team was to get their sources to spill the beans and then to be able to verify it. “People were trying to cover up what really happened as careers,rewards and reputations were at stake here,” says Rajesh. The state government had set up a two-member commission to investigate the attack and many of the commission’s findings were similar to what The Indian Express had highlighted a few months earlier.

Uncovering India Invisible (Broadcast)

Shikha Trivedy,NDTV

Shikha Trivedy won the Uncovering India Invisible award for her story on the women who joined the Naxal movement and the reasons that forced them to take up arms. “‘Guns and Daughters’ is the story of women who have joined the Naxalite movement,” says Trivedy. For many young girls,she says,the romance of the revolution is just an escape from poverty and drudgery,but for many more,it’s an ideological conviction.

Foreign Correspondent Covering India (Print)

Anuj Chopra,The National

For his four-part series,Anuj Chopra travelled deep into the Naxal heartland just before a military combing operation. His aim was to ensure a balanced coverage of this complex issue and investigate whether military efforts alone can eradicate the insurgency. “It will kill Naxalites,but will it kill Naxalism? That question was the starting point of my research,” says Chopra.

He travelled on foot deep inside the jungles in Chhattisgarh for more than a week along with tribals,who worked as his guides. “We also spent time inside a Maoist camp alongside 14- and 15-year-olds,many of whom evinced a kind of fanatical fervor to wage war against the state,” says Chopra,who now works as an editor with AFP in Hong Kong.

Foreign Correspondent Covering India

James Astill,The Economist

From a report on India’s water shortage and water politics to the Maoist insurgency in Lalgarh,West Bengal,James Astill has covered a range of issues in India. His story on India’s water politics took him across the dry-lands of Andhra Pradesh,central Punjab and the slums of Delhi.

Astill,who spent nearly five years in India,mainly covering politics,says it was “tremendously satisfying” for him to cover such a diverse range of issues. It was understanding the various issues that he found most challenging. He first visited India in 1991.

Award for Books

(Non-Fiction)

Wendy Doniger,The Hindus:

An Alternative History

An American Indologist,Wendy Doniger caught on to Hinduism from her early teens. By 14,she had read the Upanishads,watched Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy,read E M Forster’s A Passage to India,and already had a firm resolve to study India. A professor at the University of Chicago since 1978,she has dedicated her life to understanding Hindu scriptures and texts.

In this alternate,non-Sanskritised account of Hinduism,Doniger knew she was hitting some rough corners. “I became increasingly troubled by the version of Hinduism,distorted by political motives that the Hindutva faction was broadcasting on the Internet. I felt that there was a story to be told about the good ways in which Hindus through the ages had expressed their concern for the lower castes and the mistreatment of women,” says Doniger in response to an email questionnaire. Using Hindu texts as the reference point,she argues that it was British Indologists who “privileged” Sanskrit over other local languages. She weaves a detailed narrative,highlighting the contributions of non Bramhins and the “often denied” role of women in the development of Hindusim.

The response to the book was overwhelming,with academics and the media alike hailing her bold attempt. Acknowledging that she learns from “fair” criticism,Doniger is now working on another challenging project— interpreting how the Arthashastra and Kamasutra speak about religion.