NEW DELHI, March 13: Afshan Subohi and Nilesh Mishra were jointly conferred the first K. C. Kulish International Award for excellence in journalism. Former Indian president A. P. J. Abdul Kalam presented the awards.

While Ms Subohi and her team of Dawn received the honour for the special report “Why does corporate Pakistan detest democracy,” Mr Mishra and his team got the award for “The new Muslim series: from Masjid to market a journey”.

The award instituted by the Rajasthan Patrika group of newspapers in memory of its founder Karpoor Chandra Kulish, acknowledges the contribution of journalists whose news stories influenced change in the lives of people. The organisers said that at least 187 entries had been received for the award from a dozen countries on the theme of human development.

Ten works were selected for the merit award, including, “South Africa’s poisonous work places” for The Mercury, South Africa, by Tony Carnie and his team; “India besieges series: one in every six Indians lives under insurgency” by Yashwant Raj and “War torn: a series on the plight of war martyr families” by Kuldeep Maan and his team (Chandigarh), both from Hindustan Times; “Save the girl child” by Radha Sharma and her team, the Times of India, Ahmedabad; “HIV/Aids awareness campaign” by Lakhyajit Gohain and his team for Dainik Janambhumi, Guwahati; “Badhal Bundelkhand” by Pratap Samvanshi and his team of Amar Ujala, Kanpur; and The Statesman’s “’The ugly truth in Nandigram” by Sukumar Mitra.

Jay Singh Rawat of Uttar Ujala, Dehradun will get the merit award for his work “Slow pace of development in Uttrakhand: Resulting hardship of people” and Reji Joseph of Rashtra Deepika daily, Kerala, for “Weeping faces, frozen mind” and Hitesh Raviya of ‘Saurashtra Aaspass’, for “Jiske jeevan me andhera hai”.

Certificates of merit were given for all team members who contributed to the Dawn report.