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WSJ, CNN, Forbes, Time Bag SAJA Journalism Awards

Kim Bolan, who sought police protection early this year when a group of fundamentalist Sikhs threatened her because of her incisive articles about violence within their community, was one of the winners of the South Asian Journalism Awards. Other prominent award winners were journalist and novelist Marina Budhos (author the recently published The Professor of Light) and The New York Times's Somini Sengupta.

SAJA (www.saja.org) honored the winners of the 1999 SAJA Journalism Awards contest at its fifth annual dinner on Saturday.

The annual awards recognize excellence in reporting about south Asia, as well as outstanding reporting by south Asian journalists in the US. They were presented by Daljit Dhaliwal, anchor of the celebrated ITN World News on PBS, who was the keynote speaker at the dinner.

According to SAJA judge and Boston Consulting Group senior editor Subrata Chakravarty, "The awards are special because they recognize quality coverage of one of the world's most important -- and under-represented --regions, the Indian subcontinent, and, separately, recognize outstanding work by journalists of south Asian origin."

This year, there was particular interest in the nuclear testing south Asia. Sreenath Sreenivasan, administrator of the awards and a professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, added, "The fact that more than 75 of the biggest companies in the business sent in entries shows the strong interest in upholding standards in foreign coverage and of reporting by minority journalists."

There were 285 entries from 77 media outlets.

Categories For US/Canadian media outlets

I. Outstanding story on south Asia (Print)

1. "Deadly Crop: Difficult Times Drive India's Cotton Farmers To Desperate Actions" -- Jonathan Karp, The Wall Street Journal ($200 + certificate): A story about the very real costs of modernization plans gone wrong in the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.

2. "Taliban's Roots in India" -- Kenneth J Cooper, The Washington Post (certificate): A report from Deoband, India, on an Islamic seminary that influenced the theology of the Taliban.

3. "Whiz Kids: Inside the IITs" -- Manjeet Kripalani, Business Week (certificate): A look at the Indian Institute of Technology -- successful breeding ground for Wall Street and Silicon Valley leaders.

II. Outstanding story on south Asia (Broadcast or New Media)

1. "Ground Zero" -- CNN & CNN.com staff ($200 + certificate): An in-depth look at the return of nuclear weapons to the world's stage. Award is for both the TV and Web staff.

2. "Hacking Bhabha" -- Adam Penenberg, Forbes.com (certificate): An investigation into the hacking of India's top nuclear research center by Americans.

3. "Bhutan: Paradise Opens Its Gates" -- Hilary Brown, ABC News (certificate): A rare television look inside the Himalayan kingdom.

III. Outstanding special project on the south Asian nuclear tests (All media)

1. "The Bomb is Back: Lessons of the New Nuclear Age" -- Newsweek staff (certificate): 11-page report following India's nuclear tests.

2. "Living with the Bomb: India & Pakistan in The Nuclear Age" -- Time staff (certificate): An in-depth look at the effect of the tests on India and Pakistan.

3. Nuclear package -- The Wall Street Journal staff (certificate): A package of stories reported from New Delhi, Islamabad, Beijing, Washington and Istanbul.

Certificate of Special Recognition to The Nation for its two cover stories on nuclear weapons, "The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons" by Jonathan Schell and "The End of Imagination" by Arundhati Roy.

IV. Outstanding editorial/op-ed on south Asia

1."A Glimmer of Hope for India's Poor" -- Steve Chapman, Chicago Tribune (certificate): A column written from Bombay about poverty in India.

2. "India's Nuclear Escalation" -- Farah Zahra, Christian Science Monitor (certificate): An op-ed that blames the nuclear tests partly on a failure of US policy.

3. "India Saves the Tigers" -- Bonnie Erbe, Scripps-Howard News Service (certificate): A column written from a tiger preserve about efforts to save the big cat.

V. Outstanding photograph of south Asia or of south Asians in North America

1. "Paradise Lost: Bullets and a Buddhist temple in Colombo" -- Taras Kovaliv, Time ($200 + certificate): A shot of a Buddha statue, viewed through a bullet hole in a temple window in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

2. "Hana Bibi, three-year-old refugee" -- Carolyn Cole, Los Angeles Times (certificate): A shot of a little girl who lives in a camp in Muzaffarabad, Pakistan.

3. "The Shipbreakers' Ball" -- Dilip Mehta/Contact, Forbes (certificate): A series of pictures of about the shipbreaking industry in Alang beach, India.

VI. Outstanding story on south Asians in North America (Print)

1. Sikh community coverage -- Kim Bolan, Vancouver Sun ($200 + certificate): A series of articles about the November 1998 assassination of a Vancouver publisher, and the ongoing investigation of the 1985 Air-India bombing.

2. "United Ethnically, And By an Assault" -- Somini Sengupta and Vivian S Toy, The New York Times (certificate): A look at relations between recent immigrants from south Asia and Indo-Caribbeans in the wake of an assault.

3. "Where Are My Girls?" -- Steve Lopez, Time (certificate): A cover story about the effort of an Indian-American father to find his daughters after they were taken away by his ex-wife.

VII. Outstanding story on south Asians in North America (Broadcast/New Media)

1. "Bound By Tradition" -- Piya Chattopadhyay, CBC ($200 + certificate): A mini-documentary unravels the mysteries of a traditional Indian wedding in Canada.

2. "Mehndi in America" -- Sanjay Singh, CNN (certificate): A look at the art of temporary henna tattoos.

3. "Diwali Explained" -- Indira Somani, WJLA-TV (certificate): A major Indian festival is explained to an American audience.

Categories for journalists of south Asian origin working in US/Canada

VIII. Outstanding story on any subject (Print)

1. Honduras Hurricane Mitch coverage -- Sudarsan Raghavan, The Philadelphia Inquirer ($200 + certificate): A series of reports from Honduras about the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch.

2. "Kid-Glove Care: Diagnosis Critical" -- Anita Srikameswaran, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (certificate): A series that documents the daily life-and-death struggles at a paediatric intensive care unit.

3. "Guyana" -- Marina Budhos, Dissent (certificate): A personal story about visiting Guyana by a Guyanese-Indian writer.

IX. Outstanding story on any subject (Broadcast)

1. "AIDS in South Africa" -- Fred de Sam Lazaro, Lehrer Newshour ($200 + certificate): A report from South Africa about the devastation caused by AIDS.

2. Reports on Long-Term Capital Management -- Snigdha Prakash, National Public Radio (certificate): Stories about a major hedge fund and its large-scale losses.

3. "Viagra Online" -- Hari Sreenivasan, CNET-TV (certificate): A report on the availabilty of Viagra over the Internet.

X. Outstanding story on any subject (New Media)

1. "The Ape Crusaders: Saving the Orangutans of Indonesia" -- Smita Paul, Discovery.com ($200 + certificate): http://www.discovery.com/stories/nature/orangs/orangs.html

2. "Enter the Euro" -- Rajee Suri, CNN.com (certificate): http://cnn.com/SPECIALS/1998/euro/

3. "Defending the Bottomline" -- Sandeep Junnarkar, News.com (certificate): http://www.news.com/SpecialFeatures/0,5,26577,00.html

Categories for students of south Asian origin in US/Canada

XI. Outstanding student story on any subject (All media)

1."The Long, Hot Nuclear Summer" -- Suleman Din, Ryerson Polytechnical University ($300 + certificate): A student reporter writes from India and Pakistan about the summer of the nuclear tests.

2. "Prepaid Calling Cards Taking Off" -- Salina Khan, Northwestern University ($200 + certificate): A look at how prepaid calling cards have become successful in recent years.

3. (tie) "Aasif Mandvi, actor and writer"-- Shazia Ahmad, Columbia University ($50 + certificate): A profile of a young south Asian actor making waves in the theater world.

"Mental Health at Harvard" -- Aneesh Raman, Harvard University ($50 + certificate): A documentary about mental illness and how it is dealt with at Harvard.

SAJA was founded in March 1994 as a networking group for journalists of south Asian origin in New York city. It has grown into a national group of over 500 journalists working for leading newspapers, broadcast networks and new media outlets in various cities in the US and Canada.

The organization is best known for its Web-based SAJA Stylebook for Covering south Asia and the south Asian Diaspora (http://www.saja.org/stylebook). "Learn to tell your Hindi from Hindu, and much, much more."

The New York chapter hosts monthly meetings in Manhattan with distinguished guest speakers, as well as various career-oriented panels. SAJA has chapters in Washington, DC, San Francisco and Toronto (en route: Boston, Houston, Los Angeles and Philadelphia).

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