Noted Hindi fiction writer Prabodh Kumar Govil and famous poet Hemant Devlekar were today felicitated with Rajathan Patrika's top literary awards 2014 for their outstanding contribution in their field.
A cash award of Rs 21,000, citation, shawl, and a Rajasthani safa (head gear) were given away to Govil and Devlekar by the IIT Jodhpur Director, CVR Murthy and Rajasthan Patrika's Editor-in-Chief, Gulab Kothari.
Second category award carrying a cash prize of Rs 11,000 was given to Manoj Kumar Sharma in fiction writing and to Vinod Padraj in poetry category.
IIT-Jodhpur Director, Murthy in his lecture stressed on five major areas stating them necessary for the development of Rajasthan. Murthy said, infrastructure development, technology development, quality service delivery system, sustainable technology and economic viability, and teachers' involvement in quality education are linked with nation's progress.
Ramon Magsaysay awardee in Journalism, Literature and creative communication, P Sainath, through a tele-conferencing underlined a need to evolve journalism in rural India.
All other beats including economic, commerce, fashion, bollywood, politics could have scores of reporters but there was hardly any news reporter on beat covering rural parts, poverty, and hunger, Sainath said.
Referring to his web portal, 'People's Archive of Rural India', Sainath said the rural in media term should be like "the every day lives of every day people".
He said, "rural reporting should compel the government regime and states to know and understand what is happening in the rural India. This means that the society is in conversation, argument and debate with itself.
