The International Press Institute(IPI) – India award for excellence in journalism, 2011, has been awarded jointly to Tehelka and The Week for their outstanding journalistic work in 2010.
In a release here, the IPI India chapter announced that Tehelka was selected for its expose of the “rent a riot” tactics of the Sree Rama Sene in Karnataka, which admitted taking money to organise attacks on innocent persons and institutions.
An investigation by Pushp Sharma exposed the leadership of Sree Rama Sene, who readily agreed to launch a mob attack and incite a riot in favour of payment.
The Week was selected for an investigation by Gunjan Sharma into sham medical and dental colleges that had no doctors, no patients and no facilities and yet were permitted to award medical and dental degrees to thousands of students, the release said.
The awardees were selected by a distinguished jury of editors and publishers headed by the former Chief Justice of India, A. S. Anand.
The members of the jury were: N. Ravi, Chairman of IPI-India and Director, Kasturi & Sons Ltd.; M. K. Razdan, Editor-in-Chief of PTI; T. N. Ninan, Chairman and Chief Editor of Business Standard; and Riyad Mathew, Senior Assistant Editor, Malayala Manorama . The award will be presented here in December.
