Journalism Awards

In 2024, The Media Foundation instituted two new journalism awards, the Vishwa Nath-Delhi Press Award for Fearless Journalism and the Kamla Mankekar Award for Journalism on Gender.

These awards join TMF’s prestigious and long-running Chameli Devi Jain Award For Outstanding Woman Media Person of the Year in honouring excellence in the work of Indian journalists who have demonstrated exceptional commitment to the tenets of journalism by their diligent and inspired reportage, courage, tenacity and their determination to speak truth to power.

The Award Winners Of 2024

An independent jury comprising senior journalists Seema Mustafa and Rajesh Joshi and Supriya Sharma, Executive Editor, Scroll.in, selected the winners from more than 50 entries in each category.

Named after the freedom fighter and community reformer Chameli Devi Jain, since 1982 the award has been given to some of the best known and respected figures in Indian journalism.

The award, which is endowed by the Jain family and carries a cash prize of Rs 50,000, a citation and a trophy, honours women media persons who have made a difference with their writings on subjects such as social development, politics, gender justice, human rights, conflict, health, the environment, and so on.

The list of past awardees includes such prominent journalists as Neerja Chowdhury, Sevanti Ninan, Patricia Mukhim, Pamela Philipose, Sunita Narain, Nirupama Subramanian, Barkha Dutt and many others.

The Chameli Devi Jain Award has also recognised women journalists from India’s small towns who often do stellar work, but rarely come into the limelight. In 2004, it was given to a group of women from the Chitrakoot district of the Bundelkhand region of Uttar Pradesh, who wrote, produced and marketed Khabar Lahariya, a newspaper which began its life in the Bundeli dialect. Yet another notable recipient was Homai Vyarawalla, India’s first woman photo-journalist, who won the award for lifetime achievement in 1998.

At every point in its 42-year trajectory, the Chameli Devi Jain Award has endeavoured to recognise those women journalists who are doing path-breaking work, especially independent journalists who carry on with their mission despite the lack of institutional support. Hence, whether it is Dhanya Rajendran (editor, The News Minute) or Supriya Sharma (executive editor, scroll.in), or independent journalists such as Neha Dixit or Greeshma Kuthar (joint recipient along with Ritika Chopra of The Indian Express for the year 2023), or Jatinder Kaur Tur (the winner in 2024), every awardee has been, and continues to be, a torchbearer for her profession.

Instituted in memory of Kamla Mankekar, a pioneering journalist of Independent India who had a lifelong commitment to gender equity, the Kamla Mankekar Award for Journalism on Gender seeks to recognise excellence in journalists who use gender as the primary lens to report and analyse India’s social, cultural, economic and political issues.

The award, endowed by the Mankekar family, honours journalism that focuses not only on women or womanhood, but also writing on gender from an intersectional perspective, including but not limited to: gender and the environment, the masculinisation of Indian politics, gender inequalities in public health, sexuality and social marginalisation, gender in conflict and peacekeeping, gender and development, gender in labour, the economy and popular culture, the gendering of public spaces, gender and family dynamics, education and gender socialisation, and so on.

The award carries a cash prize of Rs 50,000, a citation and a trophy.

Set up in memory of Vishwa Nath, the founder of Delhi Press (publisher of The Caravan, Sarita, Woman’s Era, Champak, Grihshobha and several other magazines), and one who was known for his relentless courage in challenging both institutional authority and societal orthodoxy, and who championed the principles of integrity, social responsibility, and public service in journalism.

Endowed by Delhi Press, the award honours journalists who embody these values. It recognizes journalistic work that has demonstrated a fearless commitment to uncovering important truths, challenging power structures across political, societal, business or cultural realms, questioning orthodoxies and upholding the public’s right to knowledge.

Moreover, it underscores the resilience of both journalists and their media institutions, whose courage reinforces the foundational role of a free press.

The award carries a cash prize of Rs 50,000, a citation and a trophy.