CHENNAI: An event hosting the annual award ceremony and the convocation of class of 2021 was organised by Asian College of Journalism on Thursday.
Prabhjit Singh and Arshu John were declared winners of the Award for Investigative Journalism. Sukanya Shantha won the KP Narayana Kumar Memorial Award for Social Impact Journalism. Singh and John’s story, titled ‘Crime and Prejudice’ and published in The Caravan Magazine in September 2020, investigates the communal riots that broke out in India’s capital city last year.
Shantha’s story, titled ‘From Segregation to Labour, Manu’s Caste Law Governs the Indian Prison System’ and published in The Wire, looks into the ongoing caste discrimination in jails across the country. Prize money for the Investigative Journalism Award is Rs 2 lakh. That for Social Impact Award is Rs 1 lakh.
Delivering the Lawrence Dana Pinkham Memorial lecture at the convocation on the theme, “Who is interested in Truth?” political scientist Pratap Bhanu Mehta said: “What we choose to believe is a function of our identity and not the other way round.” Mehta added that identity also entails abstraction of the qualities people possess, and militates against the idea of individuality. Mehta said the reason often diversity is important is that it helps one step out their ‘epistemic bubble’ to perceive truth from the point of various identities.
He advised the graduating batch to question all forms of collective identity or ownership and structure that may distort truth.