Lucknow

Gaon Connection, India’s biggest rural media platform, has won the Ramnath Goenka Award, yet again. It’s a third for the organisation in a decade. Gaon Connection’s senior reporter Diti Bajpai wins the ‘Uncovering India Invisible’ category for her series ‘Raktranjit’. The series highlights those rape cases which failed to become headlines or hashtags.

The fear of a rapist lurking in the fields, on the way to school, when they go to relieve themselves or even in their own homes is omnipresent for women and girls in rural India. Diti’s seven-part series was an attempt to highlight such issues.

Earlier, in 2012, Neelesh Misra, founder of Gaon Connection, and Manish Mishra, associate editor, were awarded the Ramnath Goenka under the ‘Uncovering India Invisible’ category.

In 2013, Gaon Connection’s Anu Singh Chaudhary won the Ramnath Goenka under the ‘Sports Journalism’ category. Her series was on how sports is helping rural women to be empowered.

The Ramnath Goenka, held annually since 2006, is given to reporters who write about issues that fail to become hashtags and headlines.

The award-recipients are given a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh for categories that include print, electronic, and business & economic journalism.

The jurors for this year’s Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards were OP Jindal from Jindal School of Journalism & Communication; Tom Goldstein, professor and Dean, Global University; SY Quraishi, former chief election commissioner; Pamela Philipose, journalist and senior fellow at the Indian Council of Social Science Research; and Justice BN Srikrishna, former Supreme Court judge.

Read the Raktranjit series here

Read Part One here

Read Part Two here

Read Part Three here

Read Part Four here

Read Part Five here

Read Part Six here

Read Part Seven here