Press Note – for immediate release 03 May 2025
ACJ Awards for Journalism Announced by Jury
Chennai: The ACJ Awards for Journalism were announced by a three-member jury at a ceremony in the Asian College of Journalism campus today.
The winner of the2024 ACJ Award for Investigative Journalism is Hemant Gairola for his entry “Banks Want Forged Paper Trails After Taking Money Illegally From Customers For Modi Govt’s Flagship Schemes” published in Article 14.
The 2024 KP Narayana Kumar Memorial Award for Social Impact Journalism was jointly awarded to Vandana Menon for her story“Rajasthan’s elderly are victims of ‘digital murder’ eKYC gaps leave lakhs without pension”published in ThePrint, and to Shamsheer Yousaf, Monica Jha and Sriram Vittalamurthy for their five-part multimedia series “Breaking the nets: An oral history of India’s fisher women” published in the TheWire.
The three-member awards jury was chaired by veteran journalist Kalpana Sharma, independent journalist and writer Priya M. Menon, and documentary photographer and visual artist Harikrishna Katragadda.
The winner of the ACJ Award for Investigative Journalism award received a trophy, a citation by the jury and INR two lakhs (2,00,000) in prize money.
The winners of the K P Nararyana Kumar Memorial Social Impact Journalism shared the award purse of INR one lakh (100,000); all of them also received citations and trophies.
The winner of the Ashish Yechury Memorial Award for Photojournalism received a trophy, citation, and INR one lakh (1,00,000) in prize money.
The jury also conferred the following Special Mentions in their respective categories:
Special Mentions
ACJ Award for Investigative Journalism
Adrija Bose for her investigation, “Telegram: Predators Are Selling Child Sex Abuse Videos For Rs 40 into how child predators are selling child abuse videos through various social media platforms” published in Boom.
Abir Dasgupta for his investigation, “Adani ties with Adi group make convenient sense” into over-invoicing on coal imports by the Adani group published in The Morning Context.
K. P. Narayana Kumar Memorial Award for Social Impact Journalism
Gunjan Sharma for her report on the conflict in Manipur, “One year On: Ground reportage from conflict-hit Manipur” published in the Press Trust of India.
Akhil Sivanand and Muhammed Subith UM for their for their reports (“Lost Land, Losing Mind; A Wayanadan Angst”) ’on the psychological impact of the Wayanad landslide disaster on the survivors published in mathrubhumi.com
Ashish Yechury Memorial Award for Photojournalism
Sriram Vittalamurthy for photo essay on “The crumbling fish markets of Mumbai” published in TheWire.
Sudip Maiti’s “Odisha’s ghost villages” on the impact of sea erosion in Ganjam district published in the Village Square.
Arun Sreedhar’s “Break the rod, spoil the strike” for his image of a broken lathi when the police tried break up protest in Alappuzha, Kerala published in the Malayala Manorama
The ACJ Awards Committee received 240 entries from 101 news organisations and freelance journalists in 4 languages. The ACJ Awards for Journalism, now in their ninth year, are presented each year by the Media Development Foundation and Asian College of Journalism.
The jury’s citations for each award is below, as are the backgrounds of the jury members.
Citations for the ACJ Awards
2024 ACJ Investigative Journalism Award
Hemant Gairola’s investigation into the way banks have been fudging figures of numbers enrolled in various government schemes by compelling employees to sign up customers for these schemes without their consent is in the best tradition of investigative journalism. History stands out not just for the detailed manner in which he substantiated his findings with documents and testimonies but also for the quality of writing.
2024 K P Narayana Kumar Memorial Award for Social Impact Journalism
The K P Narayana Kumar Memorial Award for Social Impact Journalism is jointly awarded to Vandana Menon for her story ‘Rajasthan’s elderly are victims of ‘digital murder’. eKYC gaps leave lakhs without pension’, and to Shamsheer Yousaf, Monica Jha, and Sriram Vittalamurthy for their multimedia series 'Breaking the Nets'
Vandana Menon’s story ‘Rajasthan’s elderly are victims of ‘digital murder’. eKYC gaps leave lakhs without pension’ sheds light on a silent but pressing crisis—how lakhs of elderly people in Rajasthan have deprived of their pensions because of digital verification issues. Powerfully narrated and meticulously story highlights the human cost of digitalization, giving voice to those who have virtually erased from the system.
Shamsheer Yousaf, Monica Jha, and Sriram Vittalamurthy’s multimedia series ‘Breaking the Nets’ documents the struggles as well as the triumphs of India's fisher women. The five-part series, visually rich and well narrated, highlights the grit of the women who have battled all odds to earn a livelihood and leada life of dignity.
Both stories exemplify the media’s vital role in highlighting pressing social issues and amplifying voices from the margins.
2024 Ashish Yechury Memorial Award for Photojournalism
Palanikumar M.’s deeply empathetic photography sanitation workers' families who are illegally forced into scavenging. He highlights how these preventable tragedies leave behind a trail of inconsolable grief and broken families. Palani’s work takes us back to the basics of why most of us have entered journalism – to question, comprehend, sensitise, and perhaps, to
find solutions.
Awards Jury Bios
Kalpana Sharma
Kalpana Sharma is an independent journalist, columnist and author based in Mumbai. In five decades as a journalist, she has worked with Himmat Weekly, Indian Express, Times of India and The Hindu. She was Consulting Editor with Economic & Political Weekly and Readers' Editor with Scroll.in. Currently, she writes a column on the media in Newslaundry.com.
She has written two books: "The Silence and the Storm: Narratives of violence against women in India" and "Rediscovering Dharavi: Stories from Asia's Largest Slum and edited "Single by Choice: Happily Unmarried Women" and "Missing Half the Story: Journalism as if gender matters".
Priya M. Menon
Priya M Menon is an independent journalist and writer based in Chennai. At present she works as Senior Journalism Advisor, South Asia, with the Journalism Centre on Global Trafficking, designing fellowship programmes for South Asian journalists.
She specialises in covering human rights and gender issues as well as animal welfare. She has received several awards and recognitions for her work. She is the author of ‘Hand of God: A Biography of Dr K M Cherian’ (2015).
Harikrishna Katragadda
Hari Katragadda is a visual artist whose work explores communities, environment and personal memories using photography, text and drawings. He was a staff photographer with Mint in New Delhi till 2009, and has been working as a freelance photographer working with various non-profit organizations including Greenpeace and UNICEF. His deep interest in ecology led to the documentary work with Cyanotypes on Ganga river pollution. This work received Habitat Photosphere award in 2016 and the Invisible Photographer Asia Art Award in 2018. He is the recipient of the Alkazi Photobook Grant in 2020 for the photobook ‘I’ll be looking at the Moon, but I’ll be seeing you', which shortlisted for the Paris Photo First Book Award in 2022.