On August 28, 2019 The teams of journalists from London based media organisations such as Reuters, BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation), Germany- based European Press Photo Agency (EPA) and PBS News Hour of USA (United States of America) have bagged top prizes at the Kalinga-FCC Awards for Excellence in Journalism for 2019 held in New Delhi. Each awardee received a cheque amount of Rs 1,00,000, a trophy, a medal and a certificate of merit.
Key points:
i. The annual awards, the first of their kind in India, was presented by former president Pranab Mukherjee. These awards were instituted jointly by the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of South Asia (FCC) of New Delhi with the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (KIIT), a Bhubaneswar (Odisha)-based deemed university.
ii. Out of the top 5 awards, journalists team from international news agency Reuters bagged two & the BBC, EPA, and PBS News Hour shared the other 3 awards.
iii. Here’s the list award categories& their winners
| S.No | Category | Winners | Award won for |
| 1 | Print Journalist Of The Year 2019 | 9-member Team of Reuters Members: Zeba Siddiqui, Andrew R C Marshall, Mohammad Ponir Hossain, Soe Zeya Tun, Simon Lewis, Clare Baldwin, Weiyi Cai, Wa Lone, and Kyaw SoeOo. | Exhaustive Coverage of the Rohingya issue in Myanmar and Bangladesh. |
| 2 | The Digital Journalist of the Year Award 2019 | Â 8-member Team of Reuters Members: Simon Scarr, Gurman Bhatia, Prasanta Kr Dutta, Rajshree Deshmukh, Han Huang, Adnan Abidi, Altaf Hussain, and Raju Gopalakrishnan. | Excellent coverage of pollution in India’s capital New Delhi with detailed graphics. |
| 3 | Television Journalist of the Year 2019 | Rajini Vaidyanathan( BBC’s India Correspondent) | For the coverage of the ‘Me Too’ Movement in Bollywood. |
| 4 | Photo Journalist of the Year Award 2019 | Harish Tyagi (EPA) | Photographic documentation of how pollution is killing River Yamuna. |
| 5 | Â Video Journalist of the Year Award 2019 | Rakesh Nagar (PBSÂ NewsHour) | A documentary called ‘Music in the Mountains’, which is about how a Jesuit priest is bringing about change by teaching music to poor children in Kalimpong. |
iv. The 5 awards each for the best coverage of India and South Asia in the global media outside SAARC Countries (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) – Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka) Published/Broadcast during January-December, 2018. Entries for 2020 awards will be invited in January 2020.
v. A jury headed by Sir William Mark Tully(former Bureau Chief of the BBC, New Delhi) picked the winners from entries received of work done by contestants in 2018.