17 journalists bag Press Council Of India award

New Delhi: Seventeen journalists were chosen for the second 'National Awards for Excellence in Journalism' instituted by the Press Council of India.

Santosh Kumar of India Today and C. K. Sivanandan of Malayala Manorama were jointly given the Raja Ram Mohan Roy award for investigative journalism, along with Rs 50,000 each.

On the occasion of National Press Day, the awards were conferred today by Vice President M. Hamid Ansari, accompanied by Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari and PCI chairperson Justice (retd) Markandey Katju.

Among other awardees were Manu Pubby of 'The Indian Express' who was given certificate of Creative Excellence, Mohammad Waqas and Dilip Mandal of 'India Today' (Special Mention Certificate for their co-contribution for articles in India Today) and Brajesh Kumar of 'Governance Now' who got the award for Rural Journalism.

Other journalists who were awarded include Shirish Khare of 'Tehelka', Raji Joseph of 'Rashtra Deepika', Santosh Singh of 'The Indian Express', Upmita Vajpai of 'Dainik Bhaskar', and Sebin S. Kottaram of 'Malayala Manorama'.

Sudipto Das of 'The Times of India' and Prem Nath Pandey of 'The Indian Express' were jointly awarded in the category of Photo Journalism while J Suresh of 'Malayala Manorama' and Subhash Paul of 'Rashtriya Sahara' received joint award in the category of Photo Journalism (Photo Feature).

Arif Aziz, Editor of 'Nadim', Bhopal and Ahmed Ibrahim Alvi, Chief Editor of 'Aag', Lucknow were awarded under Urdu Journalism category.

The Press Council of India (PCI) instituted National Awards for Excellence in Journalism to journalists for outstanding work in their field.

The awardees were chosen by a jury comprising of PCI members Sharvan Garg, K. S. Murthy, Kalyan Barooah, Sondeep Shankar, Sheetla Singh, journalists Neerja Chowdhury, Alok Mehta, Abhigyan Prakash, secretary of Urdu Academy Anis Azmi and Income Tax Commissioner S. M. Ashraf.