The Mumbai Press Club has instituted a special award for bravery in journalism.
Titled "RedInk Veer Patrakar Puraskar", the award would be given posthumously to Jagendra Singh of Shahjahanpur in Uttar Pradesh, who was allegedly killed for his exposes on illegal sand mining and other misdemeanours, a release from the Press Club said here today.
Jagendra ran a Facebook page called Shahjahanpur Samachar, wherein he exposed the "corrupt" practices of an Uttar Pradesh minister. One of the issues taken up was illegal sand mining, the release said.
He was allegedly set on fire on June 1, 2015 and he died of burn injuries on June 8. Singh's dying declaration was recorded as an FIR. The UP government has claimed that he set himself on fire. A petition filed by journalist Mudit Mathur from Lucknow is pending before the Supreme Court, the release said.
A trophy and a small purse will be presented to Singh's legal team and Lucknow journalist Mathur to aid the court battle to bring the culprits to book, it said.
The Press Club has also decided to present 'RedInk Start-up of the Year' Award to The Wire, a news and public affairs website that has experimented with various forms of citizen journalism.
The 'Best Media Start-up' award in previous years has gone to Fountain Ink of Chennai in 2014 and Scroll in 2015.
These awards will be presented by Maharashtra Governor C H Vidyasagar Rao along with 24 other RedInk Awards on April 26 at National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA) here.
The judging process for the 1,400 entries has been just completed by distinguished juries composed of well-known personalities with specialist domain knowledge. These include Arundhati Bhattacharya, Chairperson of SBI for business, Justice (retd) B N Srikrishna for Human Rights, columnist Shobhaa De for entertainment and lifestyle, Harsha Bhogale, for sports and Sudheendra Kulkarni for politics.
"In a period when journalists and journalism are under severe threat and pressures from violence, vested interest and hashtag writing, the theme for the Redink Awards 2016 is: To Rise Above It All", the release said.
The evening began with the opening speech by Mr. Yogesh
Mudras, Managing Director, UBM India followed by a keynote address by Sandeep Sood, Managing Director, Fette Compacting. As the pharmaceutical industry is increasingly looking towards India for higher-quality, low-cost pharmaceutical solutions, the UBM India Pharma Awards was the perfect place for companies to engage with the movers and shakers in India's pharmaceutical machinery, technology, ingredients, outsourcing and biopharma industry.
India Pharma Awards 2016 covered a wide range of activities of the India Pharmaceutical sector through 25 different Nomination based categories.
