New Delhi: ‘Coalgate 2.0’, authored by Nileena M.S. and published in Caravan magazine in March 2018, was chosen as the winning entry for the ACJ Award for Investigative Journalism 2018.‘The Chronicle of Crime Fiction That is Adityanath’s Encounter Raj’ by Neha Dixit published in The Wire was given a special mention, as was the story ‘The Death of Judge Loya‘ by Caravan magazine’s Nikita Saxena.The final jury, comprising Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Nilita Vachani and Dr A.R. Venkatachalapathy, unanimously decided on Nileena’s work as the winner.‘Coalgate 2.0’ is a sterling example of investigative journalism in the field of financial reporting,” the jury’s citation read.In this story, the exploration of deforestation, re-locations of people, loss of livelihood, and denial of forest rights to tribals occupies the back canvas. In its foreground, the story is about coal. The writer undertakes a painstaking cost-benefit analysis of the mining of coal, the cost of its purification, its carriage and conversion to power, and seeks to demonstrate that far from being cost effective, the loss to the public exchequer of this joint venture runs by the most conservative estimates, to thousands of crores of rupees over the 30-year period of allotment.The award comprises a trophy, a citation and prize money of Rs 2 lakh.The award was presented today to the winner by John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, who was the chief guest at the journalism school’s annual convocation ceremony in Chennai.Also read: The Wire’s Kabir Agarwal Wins RedInk Award For Story on UP’s Sugarcane FarmersLast year, Samar Halarnkar’s “As Millions Try to Prove Citizenship in Assam, One Man’s Story Reveals Perils of Proof”, a story about citizenship in Assam, published on IndiaSpend.org in October 2017, was chosen as the winning entry.Only journalistic work that was published from January 1, 2018, to December 31, 2018, was considered. The deadline for the nominations was February 25, 2019.
