IIMCAA Awards 2025: Neelesh Misra, Anshu Gupta win Alumni of the Year

Writer-lyricist Neelesh Misra and NGO ‘Goonj’ founder Anshu Gupta were jointly conferred the ‘Alumni of the Year’ award by the Indian Institute of Mass Communication, which held the 9th edition of the IIMC Alumni Association Awards in New Delhi on Monday.

BBC Hindi journalist Sarvapriya Sangwan was awarded the ‘Journalist of the Year’. Around 80 IIMC alumni who graduated from the institute 25 years ago were given silver jubilee honours at the ceremony.

As part of the committee awards, Prof Ashok Ogra from Delhi, Jahnabi Phookan from Guwahati, Sujata Sabnis from Pune, Prof Shambhu Nath Singh from Tezpur and Dr Medini Prasad Roy from Delhi were honoured with Lifetime Achievement Award. The Public Service Award was given to Jamshedpur SSP Kishor Kaushal and social worker Aditya Vardhan from Gaya. Ketan Tanna from Maharashtra, Sudhansu Kumar Patro from Odisha and Marinder Mishra from Uttar Pradesh received the Connecting Alumni of the year award, while the IIMCAA Gujarat Committee was given the Connecting Chapter of the year award.

The event saw the coming together of veteran journalists, media professionals, and industry leaders.

Santosh Kumar Valmeeki from UP, Kalyan Ranjan and Nitin Pradhan from Delhi, Alice Guram from Punjab, Braj Kishore, Krishna Pophale from Maharashtra and Byomakesh Biswal from Odisha were awarded the Pillars of IIMCAA Award.

Several other journalists and media professionals were recognised in the jury categories, with cash prizes ranging from `50,000 to `1.50 lakh. In addition to Journalist of the Year, Sarvapriya Sangwan, along with Pallav Jain, was also awarded Agriculture Reporter of the Year; Sandeep Rajwade was conferred Reporter of the Year Publishing, Ajatika Singh Reporter of the Year Broadcasting, Harshita Rathore Producer of the Year, R Samban Indian Language Reporter of the Year Publishing, Anuj Kumar Das Indian Language Reporter of the Year Broadcast, Pankaj Bora AD Person of the Year and Ashish Shukla PR Person of the Year. Avian WE bagged the PR Agency of the Year and Kaizzen won the Digital Agency of the Year awards.