INCLUSIVE MEDIA FELLOWSHIPS 2010 ANNOUNCED

Ten journalists from all over India have been selected for the Inclusive Media Fellowships of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS). The Inclusive Media Project also conducts media research and runs a unique resource centre, im4change.org, on India’s rural crises. The recipients of the 2010 fellowships are:

Joaquim Fernandes (Senior Correspondent, Times of India, Goa, to work on the impact of mining on agriculture and rural livelihoods); Al Ngullie (Senior Sub-editor, The Morong Express, Nagaland, to work on economic and political tensions in rural Dimapur); Harikishan Sharma (Senior Correspondent, Amar Ujala, Delhi, to work on the impact of rural health schemes on the BPL families of Mewat region of Haryana); Vishav Bharti (Staff Correspondent, Hindustan Times, Chandigarh, to work on agricultural labourers, debt and suicides in rural Punjab) Arvind Kumar Thakur (Prabhat Khabar, Delhi, to work on the aftermath of the acute drought in Palamau district of Jharkhand); Mahim Pratap Singh (State Correspondent, The Hindu, Bhopal, to work on the impact of distress migration on nutrition security and livelihoods in five districts of Orissa); Rajesh Sinha (Free lance writer, the Tehelka, New Delhi, to work on the impact of the forests Rights Act on the tribal people of Jharkhand); Mira and Kavita (Khabar Laharia, UP and Nai Dunia, MP, to work on women and Panchayati Raj in Banda and Chitrkoot districts of UP); Pankaj Jaiswal (Special Correspondent, Hindustan Times, Lucknow, to work on traditional water harvesting techniques and grain banks of Bundelkhand); and Sumit Pande, Chief Political Correspondent, CNN-IBN, Delhi to work on marginal farmers and de-notified tribes of Maharashtra and UP ).

A fellowship Jury comprising Mrs Sevanti Ninan, Columnist and Editor, The Hoot, Mr. Neelabh Mishra, Editor, Outlook Hindi, Mr Manoj Mitta, Senior Editor, Times of India, Professor Satish Deshpande of Delhi School of Economics and Mr Vipul Mudgal of the CSDS selected the candidates after a long process. The fellowship jury assessed the candidates on the basis of criteria that included the relevance of their project proposals for rural livelihoods, the candidates’ grasp of the subject, news clippings and the innovativeness of their story ideas. The selected candidates and their newspapers are also being notified individually.

The Inclusive Media Fellowships are designed to encourage individual media persons to spend time with rural communities, understand their anxieties and, in the long-run, specialise on aspects of India’s rural crises. One of the main objectives of the Inclusive Media Project is to increase and sharpen the understanding about rural India’s multiple crises in the mainstream media.