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New Delhi: Journalists Priyanka Pulla and Mahtab Alam have won the Mumbai Press Club’s RedInk Awards 2021 for articles that were published by The Wire. While Pulla won in the category ‘Health & Wellness (Print)’ for a story titled ‘India Is Undercounting Its COVID-19 Deaths. This Is How.’, Alam was declared a joint-winner in the ‘Arts’ category for his tribute to actor Tom Alter titled ‘The ‘Angrez’ Who Wrote His Memoir in Urdu’.
Congratulations 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐲𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐚 𝐏𝐮𝐥𝐥𝐚 on winning the #RednkAwards2021 for the category 𝐇𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡 & 𝐖𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐬 (𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓)
STORY: India Is Undercounting Its COVID-19 Deaths. This Is How.
LINK: https://t.co/dM7n2fTpzW@PriyankaPulla @TheWireScience pic.twitter.com/SZZ21k78Du— Mumbai Press Club (@mumbaipressclub) December 29, 2021
Congratulations 𝐌𝐚𝐡𝐭𝐚𝐛 𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐦 & 𝐌𝐚𝐣𝐢𝐝 𝐌𝐚𝐪𝐛𝐨𝐨𝐥 on being the JOINT WINNERS of #RedInkAwards2021 for the category 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐒.@MahtabNama @thewire_in @MaqboolMajid @livemint pic.twitter.com/4MHjOFNdmA
— Mumbai Press Club (@mumbaipressclub) December 29, 2021
The RedInk Awards for Excellence in Journalism, organised by the Mumbai Press Club, are in their 10th year now. They are the only set of awards that extend peer recognition, backed by stakeholders, sponsors and participants.
Pulla’s report, published in The Wire Science in August 2020, revealed that several cities and states in India were undercounting deaths due to COVID-19 through two methods: counting only those deaths of patients who tested positive for the virus in their official toll; and not reporting all confirmed deaths either.
Read the award-winning story here: India Is Undercounting Its COVID-19 Deaths. This Is How.
Alam wrote about actor Tom Alter, the son of White American immigrants who was born in Mussorie, and his penchant for Hindi and Urdu. While writing about the actor’s ability to speak, read and write in Urdu, Alam also describes Alter’s quick wit. The article recounts an instance when a journalist asked the actor, ‘Aap itni achchi Hindi kaise bol lete hain? (How do you speak Hindi so fluently?)’, pat came Alter’s reply, “Muhn se (With my mouth).”
Read the award-winng story here: Tom Alter: The ‘Angrez’ Who Wrote His Memoir in Urdu
On December 24, the Mumbai Press Club announced that the ‘Journalist of the Year – 2020’ award will be given posthumously to Reuters photojournalist Danish Siddiqui for “his spectrum of the investigative and impactful body of news photography ranging from the Rohingya and anti-CAA protests to Covid-19 and the Afghanistan Civil War.” Siddiqui was tragically killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan on July 15 this year while on duty.
The RedInk lifetime achievement award was awarded to senior journalist Prem Shankar Jha. The Press Club in a statement noted that the 83-year-old Jha, a regular contributor to The Wire, was chosen to receive the award for his “long and distinguished career of incisive and analytical writing”.
On Tuesday night, The Wire‘s Dheeraj Mishra and contributor Seemi Pasha won the Ramnath Goenka Award in the Government and Politics category in the ‘digital media’ and ‘broadcast media’ divisions respectively.